


the bloodiest hands

by rievu



Series: do not go gentle into that good night [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-20 14:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18527086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rievu/pseuds/rievu
Summary: The healer has the bloodiest hands. You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. You cannot heal pain by hiding it. You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better.Despite refusing Duncan’s offer of conscription, Amell finds herself becoming a Warden in Orlais and lives to see the world unravel, spilling blood across her hands.// a twist on the orlesian warden origin in dragon age: awakenings and how both amell and alistair endure during a blight and during an inquisition (and perhaps, just perhaps, fall in love)





	1. in death, sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> this is set in the "worst" game state, and as such, some character interactions may be slightly ooc due to the nature of their hardening. 
> 
> it might help to read my other fics set in the same worldstate, especially [singing the sun into flight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674085), but it is not necessary. enjoy!

The healer has the bloodiest hands.

An enchanter once told her that. She was an aging elven mage who once lived in the wilderness among the Dalish. She was finally trapped by the templars and brought into the Circle. Amell wasn’t alive when they brought the Dalish healer back to the Circle, but Amell grew up with the healer as a guide, a teacher, a professor who taught her the arts of creation magic that wove throughout the song of life. If Amell remembers correctly, the enchanter’s former clan was called Mahariel. Along with lessons on how healing magic navigated the warp and weft of the body, Senior Enchanter Liawen told Amell tales of the wild and what life was like outside of the Circle.

But what Amell remembers the most is Enchanter Liawen’s thick, bold lines of vallaslin curling across her cheeks and running down her chin. Despite the passage of time, Enchanter Liawen still bore the marks clear as day, and her mouth carefully shaped out her words like they were small treasures. “The healer has the bloodiest hands, da’len,” she told Amell. “You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. You cannot heal pain by hiding it. You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better.”

Amell almost laughs out of sheer panic and irony when she sees Jowan with blood all over his hands and two phylacteries gripped tightly in his hands. She thought the Harrowing was bad. This was an entirely different kind of bad, and this wasn’t what she expected when she was told about having the bloodiest hands.

“I did it f-for Lily,” he stammers. “I wanted to escape, and I got our phylacteries out.” He holds one phylactery up to the light, and something about the way the blood glimmers with magic seems off. It… It calls to Amell as surely as the Fade does, and she realizes that he’s telling the truth. But, she also realizes that there’s blood all over his hands. The blood keeps flowing, and she reaches out with tender strands of magic.

And she realizes that it’s Jowan’s blood.

She claps a hand over her mouth, and Jowan’s expression instantly falls. “I-I can explain!” he says, stammering even more as he tumbles through his words. “We can escape, live our lives in freedom outside the Circle! Me with Lily, and you with all of your dreams! You could even find Enchanter Liawen’s clan, maybe!”

The sound of footsteps echoes in the halls, and Amell flicks an ear. “They’re two floors down,” she estimates. Years of constant wariness taught her well, and she cocks her head and tries to hear again. “They’ll be here in five minutes. The armor weighs them down, prevents them from running faster like they would without it.”

“Five minutes is enough,” Jowan fervently says. “I just need to meet up with Lily and—”

He’s cut off by a small knock on the opposite door. Amell and Jowan both freeze, and Jowan immediately throws Amell’s phylactery down on the ground and crushes it under his heel. “Not you,” he whispers. “At least you’ll get some kind of freedom out of this.”

The door creaks open only wide enough to let Lily through. Amell immediately recognizes her from the simple Chantry robes she wears. When Lily turns around, she gasps and claps her hand to her mouth. “Jowan?” she asks in a tremulous voice. Her voice shakes more than Amell expects it to.

Amell whirls around to glare at Jowan and snaps out, “She didn’t know?” When Jowan slowly shakes his head, she presses her hand to her temples. “I can’t believe you chose this way of running away,” she groans. “You could’ve done what Anders did a couple years ago and just cast ice magic on the lake to make a bridge or _something._ Something that’s not quite as taboo!”

“I thought this was the most effective,” Jowan admits. His gaze strays over to Lily, and his expression breaks when he sees the blatant horror etched across her face. “No, no, Lily, I can explain,” he tries.

Lily shakes her head and turns her back. “Just… Just go,” she says. Her voice cracks on the last word. “Just go. This is the last thing I can do for. Just go. It’s over, Jowan. I-I can’t do this. Not blood magic.”

Amell sighs and reaches over to slap Jowan’s phylactery out of his hands. It falls out of his grasp and cracks open on the floor. “Step on it,” she orders. “And then jump out the window. Remember the glyphs we learned to inscribe? Use those to cushion your fall and then don’t start running until nightfall. The templars won’t be able to get the hounds out to the Tower for several days, and if you cast the right glyph, they won’t be able to find you.” She digs into her pocket and searches for something that could help him. She finds nothing.

She pulls her hand out and reaches out for Jowan’s hand. Spirit magic whirls around the tip of her finger, searching for a way to sew up the wounds. However, the traces of blood magic still left on the wounds stubbornly slip out of her grasp and refuse to move at all. Frustration makes Amell huff out an angry sigh, and she twists her magic to something else instead. She calls for Hope, for Courage, for Justice, and she wraps the spirits carefully around Jowan’s arm. She glances up at him and says, “These spirits won’t stay with you long, but they’ll stay long enough to help you get across the lake.”

“Lina… You’re not coming with me?” Jowan asks with despairing eyes.

Amell shuts her eyes; she can’t bear to look her childhood friend in the eye like that. “No,” she says. “I’ll buy you time. Now, go!” She pushes Jowan away and brings up a wall of flame between them. The fire roils and leaps into a ravenous wall that melts the broken shards of glass on the floor and evaporates the blood. She watches that with more than her fair share of satisfaction, and then, she watches Jowan spare her only one last glance before he opens the window.

Behind her, Amell can hear the templars slam the door open. “Hurry, he’s getting away!” she cries out. She whips her arm out and starts a trail of glyphs after him. Her glyphs are barely visible, and she has to hide a smile when she yells, “Careful not to step on the glyphs! I tried to paralyze him, but he avoided every one!”

“Extinguish the fire, you bitch!” one templar snaps. Amell obeys and takes a step back to watch the templars flail and try to smite Jowan. Some get caught in the glyphs, and the few that make it manage to miss their aim. By now, Jowan is out the window and gone.

Amell sinks against the wall and allows the tears to slide down her cheeks. She never expected Jowan out of all people to be one to turn to blood magic. It sends misery shivering down her spine, and she buries her face in her hands. She thought that passing her Harrowing was it. The last challenge the Circle would ever pose to her other than the sheer nature of incarceration. But this? She doesn’t know if she’ll be considered safe under the furious eyes of the Knight-Commander.

The pressure of a hand on her shoulder startles her out of her thoughts, and she lifts her head to see Cullen. She automatically flinches when his face registers in her memory, and the motion darkens his expression. Amell hurries to stand up and put some distance between them. An interested templar always meant danger, and the sheer fact that he was the one purposefully assigned to her Harrowing meant more than he could ever understand. A clear and direct warning by the Knight-Commander himself, and if there is any price to pay, Amell will have to be the one to pay. It’s just one of the many lessons that the Circle taught to her.

When the templars finally realize that Jowan is out of their reach, they turn on her instead. Typical behavior for templars, really. Amell goes through the motions — denial, some tears, a skillful lie told as an alibi — and follows the templars as dutifully as she can. Two of them keep her arms pinioned, and one of them is Cullen. His grasp is lighter than the other templar, and she supposes that she’ll only have to heal bruises on one side of her body. At least she specialized in creation; templars tended to be lighter and less strict on creation mages compared to mages who specialized in primal or entropy magic.

When she arrives, the other templar throws her down on the ground in front of Knight-Commander Greagoir. Cullen barely lets go in time, and Amell goes tumbling down. She keeps her head bowed down and her tone completely apologetic as she explains the situation. “I had no idea Jowan turned to blood magic, Knight-Commander,” she tearfully says. “Maybe he was resentful about me passing my Harrowing and him not getting any notice about it. I truly didn’t know, and I tried to stop him with glyphs of paralysis and fire and whatever else I could try. But… He jumped out the window, ser, and then, the templars came in.”

The Knight-Commander glares at her, searching for any sign of falsehood, of any lie, but Amell has lived too long in the Circle to be practiced at the arts of lying. A tear here and there, a soft tremble of her voice at the right word, and the set-up of her alibi beforehand were all she needed. Finally, he exchanges a glance with First Enchanter Irving and sighs. “We’ll send out patrols for him to search for him,” he growls. “And you… We need to make an example of him, but we don’t have him here.”

“You said you would not harm her if she was not involved!” Irving protests. He gestures over to her and says, “Look at her! She even tried to stop him! She has no blame in this, Greagoir, and you know it as well as I.”

Greagoir hisses, “Hush, Irving.” He glances over to the corner, and Amell looks up to see Lily, quiet and silent as she cowers in the corner. “Lily, you were there as well. What happened?”

Amell’s blood runs cold, and she wonders if Lily went downstairs as quickly as Amell expected. However, Lily shakes her head before she whispers, “Everything Enchanter Amell said was correct, Knight-Commander. I-I didn’t expect Jowan to turn to blood magic either, ser. I thought… I-I thought we were simply going to have a quiet life. Not this. Never this. I don’t want anything to do with this anymore, please, _please.”_

Amell has to resist a sigh of relief and thanks the Maker — if there He ever existed — for the small mercy. She glances at Greagoir again with trepidation. Her reputation and her words carried her through enough mishaps when she was an apprentice. She can only hope that it carries her through her days as an enchanter now.

“We still need to make an example of you,” Greagoir finally says. “But we will not use the Rite or the blade.” Amell holds her breath, grateful for another mercy but hesitant of what he still has left to say. Greagoir shifts on his feet, and the plates of his armor clink together with the movement.

“Might I suggest a different alternative?” a voice says in the back. Amell blinks at the interjection, and she has to crane her neck to catch a better glimpse of the speaker. A figure moves forward, and Amell recognizes the distinctive blue and silver of the man’s armor. It’s the Warden who arrived a few days ago to search for recruits. Duncan, she thinks his name was. He clears his throat and continues, “I can take her as a Grey Warden recruit and have her fight on the frontlines of the Blight.”

Irving sighs wearily and leans against his staff as he says, “You have taken enough mages from us, Duncan. My old friend, you’ve asked for mages, and so, we have sent mages to Ostagar. Our finest healers and our finest battlemages are already by your side. You cannot ask us for more.”

“But those mages are for King Cailan’s forces,” Duncan says. His tone is almost too pleasant for Amell’s liking, and he evenly continues, “I am suggesting something different. I am drafting her for the Order. She wouldn’t fight during Ostagar and Ostagar alone. I would have her become a Grey Warden.”

Amell narrows her eyes at that: a motion that Duncan does not miss. She doesn’t like the sound of that at all. She knows nothing of the arts of war and exceptionally little about the darkspawn themselves. In fact, some people in the Circle whispered rumors about how this wasn’t really the Fifth Blight and only an abnormal appearance of darkspawn in Ferelden. She supposes that the sheer nature of her magic puts her at a more valuable price than other enchanters. Perhaps it was that skill that Duncan sought for his Order. Few studied creation magic since it exacted more finesse than any other school. Even the Tower itself has few prodigies or even those with a modicum of talent in that school. Senior Enchanter Wynne, Senior Enchanter Liawen, and Enchanter Anders were the few people she could picture when she tried to think about other members of that particular school of magic.

“Enough. Irving is right. You have taken enough from our Circle, Duncan,” Knight-Commander Greagoir says. “We cannot spare any more mages for your cause. If you require recruits, I suggest looking elsewhere.”

Duncan leans back and folds his arms as he regards the Knight-Commander. “I have the treaties as well as the Right of Conscription,” he says. “I am in complete right to request an official recruit from your Circle.”

Irving turns to Amell and asks, “What do you say, child? What are _your_ thoughts on the matter?”

Amell weighs her options. On one hand, she could have freedom and an escape from the Circle. However, that freedom would come at the cost of a lifetime of battle, and if the rumors of the Blight are true, Amell suspects that she will not make it out alive by the end of it. She may not know much about the darkspawn, but she is not a fool. She, too, has heard the stories of the Blights before this one. However, refusing would mean a lifetime of constraint, of containment and incarceration and continuation of her current life.

Amell opens her mouth to toss her fate in with the Wardens, but then, she remembers how Jowan crushed her phylactery under his boot. She remembers how she melted the glass and evaporated the blood with raging fire cast from her own hand. And in that moment, Amell realizes that she could make her escape at any given moment without having the usual repercussions of the templars owning her phylactery nor the heavy burden of the Grey Wardens hanging around her neck. After all, that was what brought Anders, that infamous mage, down countless times. She changes her mind in that split second to say, “No, First Enchanter. I would not like to join the Wardens.”

Duncan’s expression falls, and Knight-Commander Greagoir only nods. A grim expression settles into the lines of his face as he says, “We will move you to a different Circle. A different one, outside of Ferelden.” His tone is slow and measured as he continues, “This way, the mages here will know that there are consequences for their actions, not just for themselves but for the people around them.”

Amell bows her head in agreement, and the templars drag her back towards the higher floors of the Circle. She requests to be taken to her room, and they do so without a word. Notably, Cullen follows her in and does not leave when the others do. Amell tries to shut the door on him, but he manages to side-step his way in.

“Do you need anything, ser?” Amell asks. She fights to keep the small note of alarm and suspicion from bleeding into her voice, and she thinks she succeeds when Cullen gives no sign that he’s noticed.

“Erm, uh,” he starts off shakily. “I just wanted to see if you were alright.”

“I am, thank you,” she automatically says. In truth, she’s not that fine, but she’ll have time to unpack it all in her head later. Compartmentalization was best done at night to yourself, not to some templar who holds both fear and a leash in his hand, despite not knowing it.

Cullen fidgets by the door before he finally blurts, “I’ll miss you. You know, when you leave. I’ll miss you a lot.”

Amell stares at him before she remembers herself and dips her head in a small bow. “Thank you,” she says softly. Cullen was truly a templar boy through and through. A boy. Before the Order and the Circle makes him hard. If she remembers correctly, they were both around the same age, but Amell feels older than Cullen by decades. A side-effect of the Circle, she supposes, a mere side-effect of the misfortune of being born a mage in the current state of the world.

She hopes that Cullen remains this way — soft, naive, innocent — but she knows that sooner or later, Cullen will become like every other templar, and that is the thought that keeps her wary and on edge around Cullen. He has no idea of the fear that he sparks and of the true extent of the dampening, deafening power that circulates through his veins. That scares her. Still, Amell steels herself to pat Cullen’s shoulder. “I’ll be alright,” she says. Because that is what she has to be.

Cullen nods at that and turns to leave. His hand hovers over the doorknob before he glances back and says, “I-I liked — _like_ — you. You were special to me. Truly, you were.” His face flushes a deep scarlet, and he fumbles with the doorknob in his efforts to flee. Amell has to step over and cover his hand with her own to open the door. His ears turn bright red with the contact, and he almost stumbles in his nervous flight out the door.

Amell watches him leave with a tired expression creeping over her face. She already knew — it was impossible to not know — but half of her feels so incredibly grateful for being able to leave. She can’t fathom how or why this little infatuation happened, but she’s seen the way templars love. And it is never pretty. Always brutal, always sharp on the wrong edges. She doesn’t trust it anymore, and she’s glad to leave. Amell turns on her heel and starts packing her bags.

Halfway through her packing, she hears a knock at the door. Amell wonders if Cullen dropped anything in his hurry to get out and ambles over to the door to open it. Instead of Cullen, she sees the Warden. Duncan. Amell blinks at him and wonders why he’s here, but before she can say a word, Duncan gestures over to her. “May I come in?” he asks. Amell wordlessly nods but takes care to leave the door open instead of shutting it behind him.

He glances around at her disheveled room. Her bag is on her bed, half-full with clothes and books. Her notebooks are piled up beside her bag, and more books and notes lie on the desk, waiting to be distributed out to apprentices. Her few personal belongings are sparse at best — a hawk feather Anders brought from one of his “excursions” outside, a woven Dalish charm from Enchanter Liawen, a small crystal from Enchanter Wynne — and Duncan surveys it all with an interested look in his eyes. He seems to measure them as if each piece had immense worth, and Amell scrutinizes him carefully.

“I came to ask you why you refused to be conscripted,” Duncan begins without preamble. He gives her an encouraging smile and folds his hands. “Most mages jump at the opportunity to live a life outside the Circle.”

“Well, I already saw one jump,” Amell wryly says. That earns her a laugh from the Warden. Amell sweeps her personal belongings into a small pouch and places them in her pocket. “You’re right though. I would love to live outside the Circle,” she admits.

Duncan’s eyes follow her as she moves around the room. She stacks up the books again but in a neater pile, and she sighs, “But what is a life if I spend it hunting darkspawn?”

“A life of noble sacrifice,” Duncan says quietly. To Amell’s surprise, there is no note of judgement. “Do you know what our motto is?” he asks. Amell shakes her head, and Duncan answers, “In peace, vigilance. In war, victory. In death, sacrifice. It is an honor to be in the Order, and it would be an honor to have a person with your caliber by our side.”

“Why?” Amell challenges. “If you want someone to fight darkspawn, wouldn’t you want someone who studied entropy or primal? I specialized in creation. I’m a healer, not a soldier.”

“And that is precisely what we need,” Duncan says. His gaze drills into Amell, serious and careful. “We need people who can mend wounds and close gaps, someone who can unite something instead of burning it down or tearing it apart to solve a problem. We need you, Lina Amell. You would make a fine Warden.”

“Really now?” Amell says suspiciously. She toes the carpet and fiddles with the edge of her sleeve. “So, are you going to conscript me?”

“With your consent, yes,” Duncan says.

Amell blinks at that. “Consent,” she echoes. “Such a rare word to hear in the Circle.”

“It is a privilege that few consider,” Duncan muses. “I find that Circle mages are one of the people who know that privilege best.”

“Because it is a privilege that we do not have,” Amell counters.

Duncan extends his hand out and murmurs, “And it will be a privilege that you have in this choice.”

Amell stares at Duncan’s hand. There is a small silver medallion engraved with a griffin in the palm of his hand, and she reaches out to take it. She turns it over and over in her hand, considering her options. She thinks about her phylactery, melted and gone, and the Wardens. She knows virtually nothing about the Wardens. And then, her stubborn pride rises up, hot and heavy, in her throat. “No thank you,” she finds herself saying. “I would like to continue my studies on creation, and I believe that the Orlesian Circles will have more materials for me to analyze and experiments to perform.” She pauses and sighs, “I only have one request, ser. My mentors — Senior Enchanter Wynne, Senior Enchanter Liawen — are some of the mages being sent to Ostagar. I know it is unlikely for you to do much about them since they are under templar jurisdiction rather than Warden jurisdiction, but… Please look out for them. I would appreciate it.”

Duncan slowly retracts his hand, and Amell almost feels ashamed when she sees the disappointment in his face. “Alright, I will do my best,” he says. He leaves her room without another word, and Amell is left to pack in silence.

Just before she departs, Amell stops by one of the highest floors in the towers and stands in front of Senior Enchanter Liawen’s door. When she knocks, Enchanter Liawen opens the door, and her wrinkled face creases into a wide smile when she sees Amell. “Oh, _da’len,_ come in, come in,” she says with open arms.

Amell tackles her in a tight embrace, holding on to one of the few maternal figures she had in this entire Tower. Enchanter Liawen pauses before she strokes Amell’s hair and croons a soft Dalish lullaby in her ear. She closes the door with her foot and sets Amell down on a spare chair.

Enchanter Liawen’s room is quite possibly Amell’s most favorite place in the entire Tower aside from the library. “I heard about your situation from Irving,” she sighs. She eases into the chair opposite Amell and continues, “And to think you were supposed to leave with us tomorrow for Ostagar. How quickly the fates change.”

“I-I’m… I’m scared, _hahren,”_ Amell admits shakily. “Duncan, that Warden, he offered to conscript me, and I… I-I refused. I refused, _hahren._ He wanted someone to fight darkspawn, and I don’t…”

Enchanter Liawen caresses Amell’s cheek and murmurs, “The decision is made, _dalen._ No use crying over spilled halla milk. And it is good to admit your fears. Do you remember what I always tell you?”

“The healer has the bloodiest hands,” Amell recites. It is a phrase drilled into her memory after years and years of lessons by Enchanter Liawen’s side.

“It is an old saying from my — from _our_ — people,” Enchanter Liawen says. “You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. You cannot heal pain by hiding it. You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better. Look, you have already taken the first step. That is the hardest part.” Enchanter Liawen begins to weave light with the strands of mana leftover in the air, and soft light starts spiralling around them.

“I will miss you, _da’len,_ and so will Wynne and Anders and everyone else in this Circle. You will always be in our hearts, but you will also see new sights and meet new people. That is the gift of exploration, and I believe that you will go on to be great, Amell,” Enchanter Liawen murmurs with a tender smile. “You have grown so much, and you will continue to grow and thrive and flourish. This, I know. This is something I know by heart.”

She folds her hands over Amell’s hands and squeezes it. Amell lets the tears fall, and the Enchanter pulls her into another comforting embrace to rock her back and forth.

And so, that is how Amell leaves the Circle — her childhood home, her childhood prison — and travels across the border. That is how Amell survives the Blight and the blood magic rebellion that ravages the Tower.

 

* * *

 

Optimism is overrated.

Alistair firmly settles on this sentiment while King Cailan prattles on and on about how they are all going to stop the Blight in its tracks. Alistair himself might be optimistic, but even this is too far a stretch for him. No, your Majesty, we will _not_ stop the Blight right here. No, your Majesty, you _can’t_ kill the Archdemon yourself.

Alistair presses his hands to his temples, and Duncan nudges him in the side. With a soft grumble, Alistair drops his hands back to his side and waits for the king to finish his spiel. He narrows his eyes at Cailan and wonders how he ever managed to be this guy’s half-brother. Their appearances were similar enough, and he can see where they got their father’s traits. But Alistair has to wonder if he sounds this foolishly optimistic to everyone else.

The answer is probably yes, but Alistair doesn’t want to think about that right now.

After Cailan shuffles off to do whatever kings do in army camps, Duncan gives Alistair a disappointed look. Somehow, that stings even more than a glare or a withering look could ever do. Alistair makes a face at Duncan and complains, “What?”

“You already know what, Alistair,” Duncan sighs.

Oh, Alistair _hates_ the disappointed look on Duncan’s face. Somehow, Duncan manages to make disappointment into a thing worse than rage or anger. Alistair’s seen anger on a lot of people’s faces — irritated maids, drunk stable masters, especially Arlessa Isolde — but the disappointment that Duncan manages to express outwins them all. He just doesn’t want to let Duncan down. That’s all it is.

Alistair searches for something to change the topic with and finally asks, “Why were you so late to Ostagar? I know you stopped by the Dalish clans and picked up that new recruit — Mahariel? I think that’s what she said — but the travel time shouldn’t have taken that long.”

Duncan blinks at him before he relents and says, “I stopped by the Circle to see if they had any recruits worth taking. The Circle, as always, was incredibly unwilling to let one of their people go.”

Alistair squints at Duncan. “You say that like you found someone to take,” he comments.

Duncan chuckles and nods. “I did, but she was unwilling,” he says. “Her friend was a blood mage and tried to make his escape. She was implicated in the escape even though other witnesses said that she tried to stop him.” His expression twists as he says, “The Knight-Commander wished to make an example out of her, so he sent her to an Orlesian Circle. I offered to conscript her, but she refused. A shame, really. I believe she would have made an excellent Warden.”

“You could’ve just used the Rite of Conscription,” Alistair points out. “You did that with the Grand Cleric when you recruited me. Easy as that, right?”

And oh, is he ever so grateful for it. He’d rather be here at the frontlines of the Blight than to suffer a miserable life shut up in a Circle watching mages flinch away from him. Besides, he was bad at the entire Templar training business aside from the physical training. Alistair couldn’t even stay _awake_ during a single sermon or memorize enough canticles to the Sisters’ satisfaction. No thanks, Grand Cleric; he’ll take his chances with the darkspawn. At least the darkspawn wouldn’t evangelize and wax on poetically about how great Andraste was.

Duncan folds his hands and quietly says, “Her name was Amell. Choice and freedom were things she valued greatly. She seemed to think that joining the Wardens would be another life beholden to another organization.” He gestures over to his own breastplate and taps the griffin hammered into the metal. “She also thought that her talents did not fit a life of hunting darkspawn. I considered conscripting her, but I let her go. It is a choice that I regret now, but no matter. I believe that the other recruit I conscripted has just as much potential.”

“Mahariel?” Alistair scoffs. “She’s close to dying, you know. The Taint’s taken the color from her eyes, and it’s starting to take the color out of her hair. Sooner or later, she’s going to become a ghoul. Have you seen her eyes? I don’t know if she can even take the Joining in her current state. And she _barely_ talks. I tried to have a conversation with her, but she told me to stop talking and get to work! The nerve!”

Okay. Okay. Maybe Alistair was a little too quick to judge her. After all, Mahariel _did_ catch him in the middle of a fight with a mage. And _maybe_ he took the lack of a laugh or smile at his humor a little too personally. But she was curt and on edge for nearly the entire conversation. She spoke in short sentences, and the look in her eyes was pale and sharp.

Duncan tuts as he shakes his head. “She has a high tolerance to the Taint, more than I ever expected. If she wasn’t Tainted, then I would say it was almost guaranteed that she survive the Joining. Even now, I would say she has a better chance than the others. A strong will and a strong constitution make her a excellent candidate,” he says. “And Alistair, consider what she went through before she arrived to Ostagar before you criticize her behavior. From what I hear, she lost her lover to the Taint and couldn’t find his body again. She’s grieving while enduring the Taint. A fate I would wish upon no one.”

“Oh,” Alistair says softly. “Oh.” He awkwardly shifts on his feet and stares at the flickering flames of the campfire instead. Now, he feels like a horrible person. No wonder Mahariel looked so gloomy. He resolves to apologize to her the next morning when they head out into the Korcari Wilds and glances back up at Duncan.

Duncan looks terribly amused at Alistair’s crestfallen expression and reaches out to pat Alistair’s shoulder. Alistair huffs out a sigh and says, “Alright, alright. Thanks for letting me know. But you know? I still don’t understand that Circle thing that happened. Even _I_ was ready to bail out of the Templar Order, and all the Warden mages seem pretty happy outside the Circle. Who was she again? Amell?”

Duncan says, “Lina Amell, yes. But not all mages think alike, Alistair. Different people will have different perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes to a number of things.” He lapses into silence, and the crackling of the fire fills the space between them. Duncan stretches his arms and turns to gaze at the Tower of Ishal, looming over them in the distance. “A Blight is not so easily stopped,” Duncan murmurs under his breath as he gazes at the Tower.

Alistair looks at him suspiciously. He knows about the nightmares Duncan’s been having long before this Blight ever cropped up. If anything, Alistair feared that Duncan would go to his Calling. But then, you know, this entire Blight business happened, and then his dummy half-brother decided that he would be the hero and stop it in its tracks. Alistair can’t tell what Duncan is thinking, but he tries, “Well, we can try. I don’t think we’re going to stop it right now, but we can try to make it a shorter one. So, less of ‘terrible century-long war’ like the first one and more of a ‘let’s kill this one in a year or something’ kind of business.”

Duncan laughs, but the note of mirth in it is quiet, muted, barely there. Alistair looks at Duncan more carefully and wonders if he’ll make it out of this Blight alive with his impending Calling. _He will,_ he tells himself. _He’s strong and wise and good and skilled, and he has to, right? He will._

Hopefully.

For now, Alistair turns away from the fire to find his own bedroll. The Korcari Wilds wait for him tomorrow, and he’s not particularly thrilled about wrangling new recruits.

The knight guy reminds him far too much of other Templar recruits from Alistair’s own childhood for his own liking. Alistair searches his memory for the name, but he’s lost. Ser… John? Joseph? Alistair also vaguely remembers him from his time at Redcliffe with Arl Eamon. Ser Joey (Jove? Jacob?) was a knight for the arl. Alistair frankly doesn’t remember much about him, but the one conversation they had was about how darkspawn were scary. That doesn’t bode well for any Grey Warden recruit. Sure, darkspawn are ugly and smell bad and are scary, but you can’t just run away from darkspawn when you see them. No, Alistair doesn’t have a good feeling about Ser Jerry (Jason? Jack?) at all.

Daveth seems alright. Duncan mentioned how Daveth reminded him of himself, so Alistair figures that has to make Daveth a pretty decent person. He’s fidgety, and Alistair has to keep an eye on Daveth’s hands during their conversations. But otherwise? Alistair likes him. He thinks they could get along during lunches in the Warden mess hall or go on patrols and share a couple of jokes. The bloke seems willing enough to do what it takes to defeat the Blight, and Alistair’s more than happy to welcome anyone like that to the Order.

But Mahariel. Alistair reconsiders Mahariel. Losing a loved on and enduring the Taint couldn’t be easy. Duncan’s right. Mahariel likely would have had the greatest chance of surviving the Joining if she survived with the Taint for this long, but now, Alistair doesn’t know if her body can handle any more of it.

Frankly, Alistair still doesn’t quite know what to make of her. During their first conversation, she was short and curt with him, but she did crack a smile at one of his jokes. She wasn’t particularly tall, and she was actually quite pretty. However, the blanched color in her eyes from the Taint made her seem like a walking corpse. She even had some color loss in her curling hair, and the streaks looked stark white against her dark skin. She looked lovely when she smiled that one time, but her face remained relatively impassive during most of their conversation. Sometimes, some pain crept through her eyes and warped her expression, but it largely was static: unchanging and steady as stone.

When Alistair walked with her around Ostagar, she moved slowly and with a loping stride. Probably some joint pain and muscle aches in the areas where the Taint was most heavily concentrated in her body. But when Mahariel passed by the mages from the Circle, she stopped in her tracks before _sprinting_ towards an old, aging mage and tackling her into a hug. Alistair had to restrain the Templars guarding the mages from attacking Mahariel, but she embraced one of the elven enchanters with similar tattoos across her wrinkled face. It must have hurt her to move that fast, but Mahariel spoke in the lilting, shifting words of her elvhen language with the enchanter for hours. Alistair just sat down beside a tree and chatted with another enchanter named Wynne about hemmed trousers and darned socks for a while.

Mahariel seemed alive then. Truly so. The stone-faced expression slipped off her face, and she laughed for once. Her tattoos creased with her smile in a way that made her look even happier. Although Alistair couldn’t understand the language they spoke, they spoke in tones that were far lighter than the Tainted, hoarse voice Mahariel spoke with flat, dying tones.

Alistair starts prepping his bag and checking his inventory for tomorrow’s errands as he considers the recruits. He shoves a spare healing potion in a pocket and finally decides that he can’t really get a grasp on what Mahariel really is like. Maybe without the Taint, she would be a kind person. Maybe if she passes her Joining, she’ll be someone steady and reliable, someone that Alistair would be happy to work with, someone that would help stem the tide of the Blight. He hopes so. He truly does.

But for now, regardless of what each recruit’s personality is like, Alistair hopes no one pisses their pants when they see the darkspawn for the first time. He _refuses_ to be the one dealing with that kind of problem. Darkspawn are bad enough. He doesn’t want to add soiled armor and pissed pants to the list of things he has to deal with.

 

* * *

 

Amell’s terrible at Orlesian.

It’s mostly the pronunciation that eludes her. There’s a certain sound to their “r” sounds that she can’t get no matter how many times she tries to imitate it. Her tongue and her throat simply won’t shape out the sound properly.

Everything else is on a learning curve that she can manage with the help of her dictionary and grammar notes, but at least she doesn’t need to speak Orlesian to navigate the ebbs and flows of magic across the Veil. The Orlesian Circle treats healing in a different way. They pull whatever they want to achieve the result they want. It doesn’t matter if the Veil impedes them; the mage healers here simply reach across the Veil and rip our what they want. Amell cringes when the edges of her mana brush against the ragged edge of the Fade they leave behind. She also wonders if her colleagues see the irony of inflicting a wound on the Fade to heal a wound in reality. _Probably not,_ she thinks to herself.

Personally, she still prefers Enchanter Mahariel’s method to healing. The Dalish way of following the patterns and rhythms of the body and matching it in tandem with the Veil yielded better results, and it made it easier for Amell to heal wounds and diseases. Most of the time, healers here gave up on diseases and relied on potions. After all, it was harder to rip out disease from the blood vessels and the lungs than it was to tear energy from the Fade to stitch up a wound. Amell quickly establishes herself as a favorite amongst the mages specializing in Creation, and even the Templars soon come to her with their ails and illnesses over other healers. This earns her some ire. Combined with the inherent stereotype of Fereldans, it doesn’t make her new life here particularly enjoyable.

She didn’t expect this. She expected some time to completely adjust, but she doesn’t like this at all. The pronunciation eludes her, and the senior enchanters criticize her for not following the set guidelines for healing. The apprentices look down on her for being Fereldan and don’t listen to her when she teaches lectures. At least the research opportunities and resources here are better than the Tower’s. She pours most of her energies there and tries to get a better grasp on dreaming with the help of some kinder spirits like Compassion.

Every now and then, she wonders what would’ve happened if she accepted Duncan’s offer. This Circle’s library has a far more extensive collection on darkspawn, and every new fact that Amell discovers is one that sends chills down her back. By all rights, she shouldn’t be regretting it. But she does. Strangely, she does. She simply can’t help but wonder if a life of hunting darkspawn was worth turning down for a life of haughty academia.

So, Amell keeps sending requests for news on Ferelden, but this is _Orlais._ Orlais so rarely gives a shit as to what happens with their backwater, muddy neighbor. But finally, _finally,_ Amell gets her hands on a small newspaper from Denerim. She has to pay more than the fair price, but she hands over the gold. She has to know what happened.

Her heart sinks deeper and deeper with every word she reads. The Battle of Ostagar was a resounding failure with the King himself falling in battle. The Grey Wardens were obliterated, and Queen Anora was left in charge of a country threatening to topple under the weight of the Blight. Of course this was the news that finally filtered over to Orlais. If Ferelden fell to the Blight, then Orlais was next.

Amell reads through the article again and realizes that there is no mention of the mages there. Only the fates of King Cailan, the Grey Wardens, and Teyrn Loghain are described with detail. Amell stumbles over to her desk and sinks down in her chair, struggling to hold back her tears. Her mentor, Enchanter Liawen Mahariel, was likely dead.

Amell doesn’t want to imagine it, but her mind forcefully conjures up a series of possibilities. Killed by darkspawn, shot with an arrow, stabbed, mauled, or even worse, kidnapped. The books on darkspawn in the library offer no comfort. She sends word to the Tower, hoping for some sort of answer on Enchanter Mahariel and Enchanter Wynne and everyone else’s fate, but she receives no reply. That’s even stranger than her constant regrets over not accepting Duncan’s offer. Normally, First Enchanter Irving is always on top of his mail and his duties. Her former place as his star pupil should’ve ensured that her letter remained on top of his piles of documents and letters.

But Amell has nothing. Nothing except for a ragged Denerim newspaper.

The Orlesian newspapers offer no additional information, but Amell still spends time, painstakingly translating the Orlesian to Common. Piles of dictionaries and books on the Wardens and the Blights stack up by her desk, and the other enchanters soon learn of Amell’s new and growing obsession. They try to tell her that it’ll be alright and that the Blight will be contained inside that miserably thorny and rainy country of hers. It offers no comfort and only serves to motivate Amell even more.

She may have lived her life in the Circle, but Ferelden is still her country. She still has friends there — Jowan, Enchanter Mahariel, her family somewhere in Denerim and among the Dalish clans — and the Blight would destroy them all. Also, Amell isn’t a fool. She and the others all know what would happen should the Blight spill over the borders. History tells enough about it.

Sooner or later, a familiar knock comes once again to the Circle’s doors. This time, it is a different Warden who comes. She calls herself Clarel de Chanson, and the Circle welcomes her as one of their own. When Amell hears of her arrival, she shoulders her way towards the Warden. She ignores the protests of the other enchanters and the sound of swords being drawn by the Templars. “I am Lina Amell, originally from the Fereldan Circle Tower by Lake Calenhad,” she says breathlessly.

The Warden blinks at her, and two Templars surge forward to drag her back. They pin her arms to her sides, but she twists and strains forward again. “Warden-Commander Duncan recruited me!” she calls out.

At that, Clarel pauses and examines her, head to toe. Finally, she glances over to the Templars and shakes her head. The Templars look over to the Knight-Commander who reluctantly allows them to let Amell go. “Duncan?” she asks carefully. “Are you sure?”

Amell nods and pulls out the silver medallion Duncan gave her. “Here,” she says as she holds it up. “This is what he gave me when he tried to recruit me.”

Clarel reaches over for the medallion and inspects it. She looks up and narrows her eyes. “You’re right. This is one of the Warden-Commander’s,” she says. “But if you were recruited, why are you not lying dead at Ostagar?”

“He offered me the privilege of having a choice because it was something I never had in the Circle,” Amell replies evenly. “And I refused for the sake of refusing. They shipped me off to Orlais instead.”

Clarel folds her arms, keeping the medallion in her hand. “Then why are you so eager to rejoin the Order you once refused?” she counters. “What makes you a better recruit than anyone else here?” The Knight-Commander opens her mouth to protest, but Clarel holds her other hand up to stop her from speaking. “We are facing the Fifth Blight which is an issue that transcends the Circle,” Clarel warns. “I have the Rite of Conscription, Knight-Commander, and I will use it tonight whether you like it or not. We need to bolster our numbers and head to Ferelden to end the Blight. There is no room for refusal in this. Now, Lina Amell, answer this: why you?”

Amell steels her nerves before she answers, “I have the bloodiest hands.” That elicits several gasps from the other mages and almost certainly the Templars. Let them gasp. Amell knows how it must sound to them. Blood magic. But she means something different, something deeper. “I am a healer; I accept the blood of a wound and see how deep it goes to know how to treat it,” she says. “Warden-Commander Duncan told me that he wanted me because the Wardens needed someone who could mend wounds and close gaps, someone who could unite something instead of burning it down or tearing it apart to solve a problem.”

She extends her hand out and lets magic from the Fade trickle in and concentrate into a ball of soft, healing light in the center of her palm. “In peace, vigilance. In war, victory. In death, sacrifice,” she recites. “I may not be a mage from the School of Primal or Entropy, but I know how to make things better. I know how to accept the blood and see how deep the wound runs and how to _heal it._ That is why Duncan wanted me. I will buy the Wardens as much time they need through blood, sweat, and tears. I will keep them standing at the end of battles and let them live to see another victorious day.”

Clarel regards her for a moment, and Amell fears that she’ll refuse. But the look in Clarel’s eyes soften, and she reaches out to pass the silver medallion back to her. “Welcome to the Grey Wardens then, Lina Amell,” she says. “We need that kind of determination in the Wardens. And you’re Fereldan, yes? You’ll be helpful when we try to convince the monarchy to let us past the borders again.”

Amell grimly nods, and she departs to pack her bags once more. She stows the hawk feather from Anders, the Dalish charm from Enchanter Liawen, and the crystal from Enchanter Wynne back into her small pouch and tucks it directly in her pocket. She and a couple of other mages are chosen to follow Clarel out from the Circle and to Jader where the rest of the Wardens wait. There are other recruits from other Orlesian cities, and there is an entire regiment of Wardens, ready to start the ritual that the other Wardens keep murmuring about.

Amell figures that nothing can be as bad as the Harrowing. But when she’s handed the chalice full of darkspawn blood, she’s suddenly struck with the sheer irony of the mantra that Enchanter Liawen engraved into her memory. Amell wryly smiles and raises it up as though she was going to make a toast. “To the bloodiest hands,” she says. “And to the bloodiest drink.”

She swallows it and stumbles back. She doesn’t collapse immediately, but she also doesn’t convulse and foam at the mouth like some of the more unfortunate recruits. She has enough control over her body to pass the chalice to the next person and flash a thumbs-up to Clarel who gapes at her. Amell sighs heavily and lies down so that she doesn’t get a concussion if she faints. “That tastes terrible,” she mutters. “No wonder the Wardens don’t talk about this. No one would join if you had to drink something that tastes as nasty as that.”

“We don’t speak of the Joining not because of the taste but because of the nature of the drink,” Clarel points out. “And are you sure you drank enough? It normally doesn’t —”

Amell shuts her eyes and feels the world start to spin around her. “I was right,” she mumbles. “I’d rather pass out and throw up a couple of times than go through the Harrowing again.” She weakly waves off Clarel and says, “If this destroys my kidneys, I’m going to sue the Wardens.”

The world goes completely dark after that.

In retrospect, Amell thinks that those were the worst last words she ever could’ve said if she ended up dying from the Joining. Who says something like _that_ before they die? But she’s still alive in the morning albeit with a pounding headache, a dry, aching throat, and the faint memories of gruesome nightmares filled with darkspawn and a large, twisted, _Tainted_ dragon. She’s in some sort of bed instead of where the Joining ritual was the night before, and she has

Amell presses a handful of healing light to her forehead in an attempt to alleviate some of the pain, and she runs through the list of ingredients for her usual hangover potions in her head. Elfroot, a pinch of powdered crystal grace… She lets out a soft groan as she hauls herself out of bed and stumbles to the door.

When she opens the door, she sees another elf face-down on the floor, letting out soft mumbles. Amell nudges him with her toe, and he rolls over to groan even louder. A voice further down the hall calls out, “Shut up, Andras, we all have migraines.” Amell glances up to see a dwarven woman with a tired look on her face. The dwarf flashes her a grin and says, “Oh, hey, good morning. You’re that mage who chugged th’ Joining juice and said she was gonna sue th’ Wardens in the morning. Nice to meet you. I’m Nika of House Kader, straight from Orzammar.”

“I’m Amell,” Amell hesitantly replies. “Lina Amell of the Fereldan Circle. Well, I was transferred to Orlais, but I’m Fereldan through and through. And I only said I was going to sue the Wardens if the darkspawn blood destroyed my kidney functionality.”

Nika moves over to haul the elf up from the floor and laughs, “Same thing, same thing. This guy’s Elyon Andras from one of th’ alienages.” She jerks her thumb behind her back. “There’s not a whole lot of survivors. My brother, Eram, and some knight lady — templar, chevalier, whatever you surfacers want to call th’ same thing — named Leonie Caron are th’ only ones. Congratulations on making it, kidney girl.”

“Can we please pick a different nickname for me _other_ than kidney girl?” Amell asks.

Nika winks at her and says, “We’ll just have to wait and see about that.”

 

* * *

 

Lothering burns behind them.

Alistair can sense the darkspawn horde drawing closer and closer, and at this rate, he estimates that the horde should be at Lothering by now. Mahariel left the remaining villagers with a guide for barricades and using fire to ward off the darkspawn and buy more time for an escape. So, Alistair knows that Lothering is burning behind them as they head towards the Mage Tower.

The roads are full of refugees fleeing the Blight as well. Horse-drawn carriages from noble houses trundle alongside covered wagons and peasants who walk on foot. Everyone is equal and alike in their fear of the darkspawn, and that fear speeds their steps. Alistair and Mahariel keep their Warden armor safely hidden away in their rucksacks and wear simple leather armor they bartered for in Lothering. Dog and Leliana are inconspicuous enough, but Morrigan draws more attention than they need.

Alistair frowns when he sees Morrigan. Can’t the witch just wear a cloak or something? Can she not wear a regular shirt for at least a day or _must_ she insist on wearing her feathers and her furs and her skimpy scraps of fabric? Alistair shakes his head at the sheer stupidity of it. Mahariel has no issue with Morrigan. In fact, Mahariel spends quite a decent amount of time talking with Morrigan. Alistair has no idea what they talk about, but it’s probably something witchy considering who Morrigan is.

Alistair preoccupies himself with keeping Dog entertained and listening to Leliana tell stories. Mahariel wanders over to his corner of their camp after talking with Sten and Morrigan. She has a placid, soft smile on her face that she wears so often after talking with Morrigan. Alistair squints at her a bit before he resumes playing fetch with Dog.

“How is everything going?” Mahariel asks as she settles down beside him. Dog drops his stick and immediately veers off-course to wriggle up against Mahariel. Figures.

Alistair sighs heavily, “Well, I miss cheese a lot. I wasn’t thinking and I gave Leliana my last piece, but now? Now, I think I regret it a little bit. Why are we heading to the Mage Tower again? We could be going to Redcliffe where they have reinforcements _and cheese,_ Mahariel.”

Mahariel laughs and nudges Alistair. “You can live a few more days without cheese, Alistair,” she says. Her expression twists a little bit, and she admits quietly, “To be honest, I chose the Mage Tower out of sentimentality.”

“Then why didn’t you pick the Brecilian Forest?” Alistair asks. “There’s a Dalish clan there right? They have the old treaties still. We could’ve gone there. You probably know a lot of people there.”

Mahariel stares into the distance and absently scratches Dog’s head. “I know,” she says slowly. “But I do not remember any story good about the clan in the Brecilian. My clans drifted by the forest sometimes, but we never stayed long. There was some spirit or some sort of curse deep in the forest, and my Keepers always feared staying for too long.”

“Wait, clans?” Alistair asks. He furrows his brow and rubs his chin. “Do you mean that like… Multiple ones?”

Mahariel offers him a wan smile. “Yes,” she says. “I was originally from Clan Mahariel, but we were too big of a clan to survive from journey to journey. It is a blessing to have many people in a clan to hunt, but every additional person means an extra mouth to feed, another body to hide from the Templars, and eventually, it turns into a burden that the clan cannot bear.” She shakes her head. “My parents and I went to Clan Sabrae next. But at Ostagar, I met an old _hahren_ from my original clan. Hahren Liawen… I remember her well from my childhood. She was captured by the Templars to save us, and that was the final thing that made my parents decide to leave.”

Mahariel tips her head up to gaze at the stars and whispers, “So, yes, sentimentality. There are a number of reasons I could give for choosing the mages first. The mages may have healing potions that we may use. Magic is useful for battles. Morrigan is skilled, but we need a hundred more Morrigans to combat the Blight.”

Alistair shudders at the thought of _a hundred Morrigans,_ but he bites back the barbed joke that rises up his throat. He doesn’t want to upset her or start another debate on whether or not they should kick Morrigan out. Mahariel always says that it is not a debate, but Alistair thinks that Mahariel is ignoring some of his better points when she says that. Instead, Alistair shrugs, “Whatever you say, Mahariel. And hey, it’s better than going straight into the Deep Roads or something like that.”

Alistair doesn’t want to go to the Deep Roads during a Blight. Oh no, no, no. He’s heard horror stories of how the dreams get worse and worse with every further foot you go into the Deep Roads. He’s even felt it himself, but the senior Wardens laughed and called that a minor headache compared to the ones further down in the twisting dwarves caverns. Combined with the mind-wracking dreams caused by the Archdemon, Alistair just _knows_ that the Deep Roads will be an absolute migraine of a trip.

They arrive to the mage tower with some relative ease. They get attacked by assassins, but Mahariel silently hefts her sword and makes short work of them all. She does spare the lead assassin though. A Crow by the name of Zevran who fixes his eyes on Mahariel’s tattoos before blinking and staring at Mahariel’s Dalish leather gloves. Alistair’s not going to judge Mahariel, no, nope, he’s not getting into _that_ kind of pickle tonight. However, he keeps his sword by his side and keeps a wide berth around the Antivan Crow for the night at least. But they arrive to the Tower, still in one piece.

Alistair is actually very grateful for that. He figures that he has to thank Andraste for something like that, but he’s rather thank Mahariel. So, he thanks Mahariel, and she smiles that peculiar little smile of hers. Halfway between happiness and somber sadness. It’s a strange smile, but it’s Mahariel’s smile, and he settles for that.

They enter the Mage Tower, and it’s nothing like what Alistair expected. For one, the Templars are getting ready to call a Rite of Annulment. The tower is in a state of chaos and anarchy. Alistair shudders when he thinks about how he could’ve been one of the templars here, forced to watch helplessly as the Knight-Commander prepared to purge every human life here purely because magic touched their souls. It’s a horrifying prospect, and Alistair immediately thinks that he’d take killing darkspawn over mages any day.

The templars are just so… Angry. They’re irritable and constantly stretched too thin, and their depleting stocks of lyrium make them brittle at the edges. They ask for lyrium first above food and water, and some rock back and forth in a corner, reciting the Chant to cope with the loss. Alistair quietly thanks Duncan and all his lucky stars that he never became a Templar.

Mahariel finally manages to bargain her way into the Tower. Her stare and her even tone is just as strong if not stronger than the Knight-Commander’s, and he finally lets them pass. Just before Alistair passes through to the other side, one templar catches him by the wrist. Alistair glances back to see the face of one of the boys who lived at the same monastery at him. He gapes at the Templar armor the man wears now and tries to sift through his memory for the right name. But that memory eludes him, and the only thing Alistair is truly left with is the memory of the boy’s face.

“Alistair?” he asks. “You were that king’s bastard at the monastery, yeah?”

Alistair offers a hesitant nod, and the man grips even tighter to his wrist. “Some of us are still in there. Cullen, David, Hadley, Brynn. They’re all still trapped there with those wretched beasts,” he says low and desperate. “Save them or put them out of their misery, I don’t care which. And make sure you kill those fucking abominations and maleficar for what they did to them.”

Alistair blinks rapidly and tries to tug away from the templar, but he finally nods shakily before the templar lets go. Alistair turns to join Mahariel, Leliana, and Morrigan on the other side, but he can’t shake the sound of the templar’s words from his memory now.

The door slams shut behind him, and he’s left to face Mahariel’s questioning eyes. He rubs the back of his neck and says, “Some guy I used to know when I was a boy. Just that. Not sure what he means though. Well, sort of. Yeah. Yeah.”

Mahariel blinks slowly and considers him for a moment. In these kinds of times, Alistair feels like he’s being weighed on a scale by Mahariel, but he’s never quite sure what she measures him against on the other side. But no matter. He knows that she’s fair and kind, all things considered.

“Alright,” she says. “Let us move on then. We have people to save.”

She leads the way through the passageway but pauses. Alistair cranes his neck to see several apprentices cowering in a corner while several mages keep a barrier up. “What is this?” Mahariel asks.

“Who are you?” the oldest mage asks warily. She readies her staff, and a faint light glows at the end of it. Alistair can feel the magic in the air prickling as it starts to filter around them, but it’s tenuous and weak compared to the other times that he’s felt it before. This mage is too weak to do anything, but Alistair suspects that she would do whatever it took to protect the others from them.

“I am from Clan Mahariel,” Mahariel evenly says. “And I am also a Grey Warden. I am here to request that the Mage Circle honor the Grey Warden treaties and help defend Ferelden from the Blight.”

The mage sighs, “There may not be enough mages to honor your treaties, Warden. I am Enchanter Wynne. And you are Mahariel? You were the one from Ostagar? The one related to Enchanter Mahariel?”

“Yes,” Mahariel says. She steps forward and asks, “Hahren Mahariel, is she still… Is she still alive?” Her voice wavers on the edge, but she tries her best to keep her expression blank.

“I’m so sorry,” Wynne breathes out. “Enchanter Liawen Mahariel sacrificed herself at Ostagar to ensure that we all got out safely. Every templar, every mage from this Circle who was at Ostagar survived because of her.”

Mahariel takes a step back and covers her mouth with her hand. She chokes back one heaving breath before she shakily asks, “Truly?”

“Her last words,” Wynne starts. She hesitates before she reaches over to pat Mahariel’s shoulder. She grips onto it and whispers something into Mahariel’s ear. Alistair tries his best to listen in even though he feels like he shouldn’t, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t hear a single word.

Mahariel covers her face with both of her hands and mourns silently like she did after Ostagar and Lothering. Her shoulders shake, but she does not make a single sound. She allows herself only a moment before she lets her hands fall back to her sides. She exhales and says, “Sacrifice is perhaps the noblest death.” She looks back at Alistair, Morrigan, and Leliana and musters up a weak smile. Her pale eyes glitter with unshed tears, but she keeps her head held high. There are no tears streaked across her cheeks, and her shoulders are set perfectly straight. If Alistair didn’t know any better, he’d say she was fine.

She turns back to Wynne and dips her head. “Thank you for letting me know,” she murmurs. “It was a noble decision and one that she would have been proud to bear as anyone from Clan Mahariel should be.” A quiet laugh absent of any joy bubbles up from Mahariel’s lips as she says, “I know I would have done the same thing in her situation. Always.”

Somehow, that phrase sends a chill down Alistair’s spine. He can’t explain why, but it fills him with a sense of growing dread. He tries to push it out of his mind. _It doesn’t mean anything,_ he tells himself. _Just a comment. She’s going be fine. You’re going be fine. You’re both going to make it out of this Blight alive._

He promises himself that at the very least. He and Mahariel are going to make it out of this Blight alive. He’ll buy as much time for them as he can.

He keeps that promise close to his chest as they progress through the floors of the Mage Tower. It’s the very least that he can do for his best friend. He keeps his sword and shield up to protect the others as best as he can, and he repeats it to himself once more for good measure.

_We’re going to make it out of this alive._

 

* * *

 

Clarel de Chanson is furious.

The Fifth Blight is sweeping over Ferelden and devastating towns and farms and cities. And yet, Teyrn Loghain refuses to let the Orlesian Wardens across the borders.

For one, the teyrn declared all Grey Wardens to be traitors. More than that though; Teyrn Loghain refuses to accept any Orlesian reinforcements. Not a single chevalier nor a single Warden is allowed over the borders. Instead, they all sit and mill in Jader while the Fifth Blight continues, unable to do anything.

The officers at the border offered to let Amell through because she was still Fereldan, but Amell refused. Her status as a Warden would be enough to get her executed. Alternatively, she could get sent back to the Circle and be treated as nothing more than a filthy mage again.

Amell doesn’t know much of what goes on behind the scenes, but the few details she manages to pick up are enough drama and gossip to tide her over for the night. Rumor has it that Teyrn Loghain is furious at Orlais and Empress Celene and not for the reasons people normally believe. Leonie Caron, a former chevalier who survived the Joining with her, tells her in hushed whispers that King Cailan intended to set Queen Anora aside to marry Celene and cement an alliance between the two bitter nations.

Amell is Fereldan; she can see with blinding clarity as to how this could stoke the teyrn’s ire. This was more than just a slight to his daughter and his family’s honor. An alliance to one of Ferelden’s bitter foes — a foe that the teyrn spent his childhood rebelling against — would have been intolerable. In fact, Amell herself cringes at the prospect of it. She’s sensible enough to see the sense in it, but the smallest kernel of national pride tells her that the idea would have been horrific to more people than just Teyrn Loghain.

That certainly doesn’t excuse what Amell views as absolutely terrible decisions. The likely deaths of her mentors at Ostagar are a constant reminder to her of what she and the rest of the nation lost. The Blight was an issue beyond petty border struggles and a royal spat. They don’t have time to waste on a civil war. It is a sentiment mirrored across the groups gathered in Jader, and the entirety of the Warden Order present seethes. Warden-Commander Alisse Fontaine paces back and forth, trying to send letters of negotiation with the Teyrn.

Amell admits that eavesdropping on the Warden-Commander of Orlais herself may not be the wisest answer, but almost every other Warden is there too. The Warden-Commander slams something — likely the latest letter from Denerim — down on a table and snaps, “I sent the letter directly to the queen! How dare that teyrn take it for his own? His daughter should be a queen in her own full right. She doesn’t need a regent!”

“She is his daughter,” Amell hears Clarel say. She has to strain to hear Clarel’s softer voice, but Clarel continues, “Have you not considered the possibility that Anora is working with her father?”

The Warden-Commander snaps back, “Queen Anora has been the one person running that entire backwater mess of a country for the past several years. She already has the position and the power and the influence and the favor of the people! She has everything to lose and nothing to gain from a civil war started by her own father!”

“We cannot pass their borders,” Clarel replies. “We cannot afford to lose more of our brothers and sisters when there is an Archdemon alive and well. Let’s fight in the Deep Roads, take our forces underground. We may not be able to do anything on the surface or in Ferelden yet, but we can do our best to keep the darkspawn from breaking into Orlais.”

Amell hurries away from the door. She’s heard enough.

It’s good that she leaves when she does because the Warden-Commander abruptly opens the door while Amell finishes climbing the stairs. She gives each and every guilty Warden a long, hard stare before she sighs, “Get to bed and try your best to get a good night’s sleep. We’re heading to the Deep Roads tomorrow.”

The Kaders and Elyon are one of the many to get caught, and Warden-Commander Fontaine sends them back upstairs. Amell lingers long enough to wink at them. Elyon sticks his tongue out at Amell and mutters, “Lucky. You got out just in time.”

“I seem to have a habit of doing that,” Amell lightly replies. That’s true enough. She’s managed to avoid nearly all of the rough situations in her life thus far. To call it a single stroke of luck would be an understatement. From Jowan’s predicament to the Battle of Ostagar and to what Amell suspects happened to the Mage Tower, she’s certainly managed to avoid each and every bad circumstance.

Nika trills out a laugh, heedless of what just happened. “Back home again, eh, brother?” she says. “It’ll be good to be back underground instead of this terrible place where th’ sky’s upside-down.”

Eram nods in agreement. “Can’t imagine how you surfacers manage to live like this every day,” he grumbles. “And th’ blasted sun blinds my eyes every morning. I’ll need tinted glasses at this rate.”

Behind Amell, Leonie clears her throat. Amell glances back to see Leonie with her arms folded over her chest. She still has her Warden armor on instead of the softer and simpler garments everyone else has on. She simply shakes her head with disapproval before she says in clipped tones, “I cannot believe it. The amount of nerve you all have to spy and eavesdrop on the Warden-Commander herself is disgraceful.”

Amell shrugs, “It’s only disgraceful if you get caught.”

“And besides,” Elyon snorts. “You want to know just as much as we do. Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to listen in from the top of the stairs.”

Leonie sniffs at that and lifts her chin a margin of an inch higher, but Eram clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “Quit your bickering and let’s get to bed,” he says. “We’re all gonna sleep terribly tonight. You know, dwarves don’t dream, but that Stone-cursed Archdemon manages to make _my_ nights rough. Can’t imagine how you folks deal with it. So, let’s get to bed and try to get as much sleep as we can, alright? You can fight in th’ morning.”

Leonie reluctantly nods and turns to go back to her room. Elyon and the Kaders follows suit, but Amell lingers long enough to glance back downstairs. The Warden-Commander and Clarel are still there, staring deeply into the flickering fire of the inn’s hearth. The fire is low and barely there, and the embers glow in among the charred wood. Clarel reaches out a hand wreathed in fire to stoke the flames again, but Warden-Commander Alisse lays a hand on Clarel’s shoulder to stop her. They exchange a few inaudible words but Clarel finally sinks into the Warden-Commander’s arms and rests there for a bit.

Amell turns away now. Let them have their own brief moment to themselves. She returns to her bed and dreams about the Archdemon instead.

The twisting song rattles through her dreams and leaves her heart beating faster than she’s ever felt it before. Amell wakes up numerous times during the night with cold sweat beading her brow, and she has to press her hand to her chest to try and calm down her breathing. She sends soft pulses of healing magic to try and alleviate the pain, but her dreams remain fair game to the Archdemon that stirs deep in the country of her home.

The dreams only worsen in the Deep Roads. Some of the new recruits wake up screaming from their sleep, and that only alerts them even more to the darkspawn. Amell feels a strange tug at the bottom of her gut whenever the darkspawn draw closer, and she has to ready herself with her staff in hand.

The only good thing about the Deep Roads is that it forces Amell to train and to learn and to push the boundaries of her own magic. She learns how to cast barriers and healing spells within the span of a second, and she forces herself to pay more attention to her surroundings. Now, when she sees a genlock’s arrow hurtling towards her in her peripheral vision, she can summon up a barrier fast enough to block it.

This takes time though, and time is something that the Wardens have oh so little of. The days turn into weeks that later turn into months. Every single day feels the same though. The sky remains far out of reach, and Amell becomes accustomed to the darkness and the taste of deep mushroom. Nika and Eram seem to take a particular joy in introducing Amell to the delicacies of dwarven culture: a joy that Amell does not reciprocate.

That’s why the surface turns into a surprise for Amell. When she emerges out of the cavern, she has to squint against the brilliance of the light that sinks into her sun-parched skin. In addition to the light and the fresh air of Orlais, Amell finds out one truth that makes hope flare up in her heart, brighter than the sun that gleams in the sky.

There are still Wardens in Ferelden.

To be specific, there are two wardens. One named Alistair Theirin, a king’s bastard, and the other is a Dalish elf named Isena Mahariel. Between the two, Mahariel is the one with a meteoric rise to infamy and leadership. With her guidance, they have gathered allies all while eluding the furious wrath of Teyrn Loghain.

While all the other Orlesian Wardens marvel at her audacity and her skill, Amell focuses on something else entirely: her name. The clan name makes Amell’s blood run cold, and she has to reach into her pocket to see if Enchanter Liawen’s charm is still there. She grips onto it with a deathly grip, and she laughs hollowly to herself. How ironic that this Warden is one named Mahariel. She has to wonder if this Mahariel knew Enchanter Liawen at some point in time. Pity she can’t ask the Warden herself.

Warden-Commander Fontaine leads them back to the Fereldan border, but instead of border patrols, they find refugees pouring over the border. Some babble about how the darkspawn are advancing on Denerim. One last stand or something of that nature. There is one group of refugees who tell them about how the Wardens — Mahariel and Theirin — have gathered allies to them. Mages, elves, humans, and even the reticent dwarves of Orzammar are coming to Ferelden’s aid. The teyrn is gone and in his place, Queen Anora has taken her rightful place on the throne once more.

With a grim expression across her countenance, Warden-Commander Fontaine formally issues the Wardens to march across the border. If Warden Mahariel is amassing this large of a force to save Ferelden, the old ban on Wardens and the recent bounty should not matter quite as much. They take their fastest horses and struggle against the tides of people that surge away from the nation’s capital.

But they are late.

When they arrive, Warden Mahariel’s body is cold and dead alongside the bones of the Archdemon.

Amell and the other Wardens gather at Denerim where the Queen herself comes to meet them all. The entire city is deep in grief, and Queen Anora explains the situation in short, curt words. The Warden sacrificed herself to save Ferelden.

They call her the Hero of Ferelden now.

Queen Anora graciously allows them to stay for the funeral, and Amell watches the proceedings with a somber face. For once, no words spring up to mind, and instead, she stares blankly at the Warden’s dead face.

Like Enchanter Liawen, Warden Mahariel has dark lines running across her cheeks and twisting off into an intricate design. Her skin is dark and sun-freckled, and Amell can see white streaks through Mahariel’s curling black hair. The portrait of the Warden beside the coffin depicts her with pale, almost colorless irises as well. Almost immediately, Amell recognizes the signs of the Taint from all the ghouls she’s seen over the past year, and she wonders how Mahariel survived being a Warden.

_Well, she didn’t survive,_ Amell thinks.

They say that Duncan recruited Mahariel from a Dalish clan. Amell looks down and laughs hollowly when she sees the Warden blue and silver mirrored across her own robes. Perhaps she could have been that Hero if only Jowan hadn’t done blood magic to make his escape, if only she hadn’t refused Duncan, if only she hadn’t left Ferelden. But she is here with blood on her hands and darkspawn blood in her veins, finding connections to the past from the core of herself as surely as her arteries divert away from her heart.

 

* * *

 

_We’re going to make it out of this alive._

The memory of that single promise makes Alistair laugh out loud. Cold, bitter, and angry. He stares at Mahariel’s dead body and rubs a circle around his wrist.

Maker, he’s so angry at himself. He saw Riordan fall from the sky and knew that the Warden wouldn’t survive the fall. That’s why he mentally prepared himself for the sacrifice. Anora was Queen, and Mahariel would have been, by far, the better Warden-Commander of Ferelden after all of this was over. _He_ was the most expendable. Just another king’s bastard.

But _no,_ it didn’t happen that way. Maker, why do all of his plans never come out the way he expects? The battle was several days ago, but he can still remember it like it was minutes ago. He can still feel Leliana’s fingers curl around his wrist to hold him back from the Archdemon before Mahariel plunged her sword into the Archdemon’s skull. _Cold, blood-slick, fingernails digging in as she yanks him away, a single scream of Mahariel’s name before she —_

Everything grows fuzzy after that. Alistair just feels numb and useless as he watches the city slowly knit itself back together under Anora’s firm direction. People arrive back to Denerim to patch together the broken buildings and shattered streets. Healers from the Mage Tower arrive to stitch back wounds with hands that get stained over and over with their patients’ blood. But nothing and no one can heal what has been done to Mahariel, and Alistair feels like he has Mahariel’s blood all over his clumsy hands.

He takes a step back from Mahariel’s body and tips his head up to stare at the sky. It is infuriatingly clear and bright blue. The grey that he’s normally accustomed to is gone, and it only irritates him more. Perhaps the Maker was kind enough to send good weather on Mahariel’s funeral day, but the Maker wasn’t kind enough to save Mahariel.

Alistair is weary. He’s so incredibly weary, and he would give anything in the world to have Mahariel safe and sound and _alive._

At least Mahariel looks peaceful in death. Moreso than she ever did in life if Alistair recalls correctly. And oh, he has too many memories of Mahariel, and all of them seem so brilliant and bright in their clarity. Another thing that adds to his growing burden of grief and weariness.

He looks around at the others thronged around Mahariel’s coffin. He’s already talked with Sten, Shale, Leliana, and the others. Morrigan disappeared like a ghost, and he couldn’t find her at all at the funeral. He doesn’t blame her. He can’t imagine what it would be like to look at the dead body of your lover. Morrigan has her own grief to bear, and if this is the way she copes, Alistair can’t blame her for it.

His talk with Leliana shakes him though. He asks Leliana why she pulled him away from the Archdemon, and she tells him that it was one of Mahariel’s last requests from her. If that’s true — and Leliana has never lied to Alistair — then that means Mahariel began the Battle of Denerim knowing that she would die. It chills him, and he feels so painfully lost in the aftermath of her sacrifice. Logically, he knows that Leliana didn’t know a single thing about the fate of a Warden. He tries his best not to let that sour his feelings and attitude towards Leliana who seems even more lost than he is. But it remains like a thorn in his too-big heart.

No matter. He has to move on. If Mahariel died for him to live, he needs to honor her sacrifice by doing the best that he can.

Another thing that bothers him is the fact that Mahariel is getting buried according to Andrastian rites. The Dalish clans from all over Ferelden have gathered by Mahariel’s body to sing her their funeral dirges, but Anora and the Chantry have already made preparations for her funeral pyre. They plan to scatter her across the Bannorn and return her back to the soil of her country, but Alistair remembers what Mahariel told him about her people’s customs.

They bury an oak staff with their dead so that their souls can find their way to the Beyond. Then, they plant a sapling above their graves so that their bodies can return to the land as life. Alistair wonders if anyone is carving a staff for Mahariel or if anyone is planting a tree for Mahariel. He suspects not. Instead, she will have the songs of her people and the Chant from the Revered Mother to guide her on her journey to the Beyond.

Impulsively, Alistair decides to do something about it. He’s already spoken to everyone that he’s wanted to. He leaves the funeral with surprising ease. He wore his Warden armor, but no one pays him much attention compared to the attention they give to Mahariel. Good. He wants it that way.

He searches throughout the streets of Denerim for something that he can plant. Some stray thought makes his feet turn towards the alienage. Something about the alienage always draws him closer. Mahariel once told him his eyes gleamed like an elf’s in the dark once. He’s not quite sure what that means, but he arrives in the alienage.

It is devastated like any other street in Denerim, but the vhenadahl still stands. The elves here have already begun rebuilding their homes, and they seem to having far more progress than the rest of the city. There’s no one left here though. They’re all paying their respects.

Alistair searches at the roots of the vhenadahl, hoping and hoping and hoping that he can find something. His fingers scrabble against the dust and dirt as he searches, and finally, he thinks he finds a woody sprig of something. Alistair’s never been quite as good as identifying plants and things like Morrigan and Mahariel were, but he thinks it might be the start of a sapling.

Okay, maybe he’s projecting too much hope onto this measly little scrap of a thing, but Alistair will snatch up as much hope as he possibly can. He uses the points of his gauntlets to dig up the woody sprig and holds it carefully in his armored hand.

He exits the alienage on quick feet, and he shuffles past several people with a sheepish “sorry” and “excuse me” hanging from his lips. Maker, he feels like he’s sneaking out of school again. Just before he exits the main city itself, he spies a few tools piled up against the wall. A shovel is one of them, and Alistair thinks that it wouldn’t be too bad if he just… Borrowed it for a little bit. Yes, borrowing would be perfectly fine. He wasn’t _stealing_ it or anything like that, no no no. He was just borrowing it.

He searches for a spare bit of land outside Denerim’s walls. This is the path that they first walked on when they stepped into the city for the first time. Morrigan and Mahariel were holding hands as they walked, and Sten and Shale were talking about the merit of pigeons. Alistair thinks he can recall the melody that Leliana was humming when they were walking, and he certainly remembers the way Zevran was teasing Wynne. He stands on the path and swears that he can see his memories almost as if they were real again. Alistair shakes his head and heads to the side of the path where the dust and dirt pile up and sprout with grass. The few sprigs of green grass remind Alistair that the Blight hasn’t touched everything yet. Alistair gently sets the sapling down.

And he starts digging.

The motions become routine and thoughtless after the first few stabs at the ground with the shovel. Eventually, Alistair just has to ditch his gauntlets and start shoveling bare-handed. The calluses of his hands don’t quite match up to where the shovel’s handle chafes against his skin. His hands were made for swords long ago; shovels didn’t quite fit anymore. But he digs.

The dirt is hard and pounded down after too many footsteps and horse hooves across it, but Alistair tries his best. While he digs, he suddenly hears a voice behind him clear her throat and say, “I did not expect the new Warden-Commander of Ferelden to be outside Denerim digging a hole.”

The voice is Orlesian, slipping through all the vowels and syllables, and it just makes Alistair want to groan out loud. He heard that a regiment of Orlesian Wardens finally came across the border once they heard that Loghain was dead. But they were too late. Missed the Battle of Denerim and all. Apparently, Anora let them stay. Alistair would’ve sent them packing if he could. When Alistair looks at them, the only thing that he can truly think of is all the possibilities that could’ve happened at the Battle of Denerim instead of the circumstance that he’s stuck with.

Again, it’s unfair, just like what happened with Leliana. But Maker be damned, Alistair is going to be as petty as he wants to be. He deserves it in his grief. He will have this one small thing if he cannot have Mahariel alive. Pettiness doesn’t feel good on him, but he takes it anyways because it’s the only thing he _can_ do.

Alistair sighs and leans against his shovel. Without turning around, he asks, “Who is this?”

The voice tuts, and the speaker circles around Alistair until she’s facing him. It’s some Orlesian Warden that Alistair doesn’t recognize. She wears the same Warden blues, but the armor is wrought into a different and more ornate style. The metal frames her body in long lines, and there's a distinctly Orlesian style along the hemming of her robes.  _Mage,_ Alistair automatically thinks. Likely one specializing in more physical styles of magic whether it be fire or ice based on the way her sleeves are sewn and her cape is tied back. Her hands are loose and free to move as she wishes, and as she speaks, her hands gesture along with her. “My name is Clarel de Chanson,” she says. “Second in command to the Warden-Commander of Orlais. My apologies for our late arrival. We ran into several issues at the border multiple times.” Her face twists into one of pity. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Alistair says flatly. “You came late. Mahariel took the hit instead. That’s the way it is, and I don’t want to hear any pity about it.”

Clarel hesitates before she dips her head in acknowledgement. “My apologies for that then,” she says. “Warden-Commander Alisse Fontaine would have liked to be the one to speak to you, but she is currently paying her respects to Warden Mahariel at the moment. So, I was the one sent to find you and deliver our message.”

“What is it?” Alistair tiredly asks. “Just get on with it.” He resumes digging.

“You are the only Warden remaining in Ferelden, so you are being promoted to Warden-Commander, yes? A worthy decision considering your performance and your results during this Blight,” Clarel says. “We wanted to offer our support as you rebuild the Warden Order in Ferelden. We even have a Fereldan among our ranks, a mage by the name of Lina Amell, who could help you in your efforts.”

Alistair drags his gaze up to Clarel’s expectant expression and shakes his head. “Thanks but no thanks,” he says. “As much as I appreciate the show of support, Fereldans never liked Orlesians sticking their noses in our business. I don’t think it’ll help the cause much. In fact, some might even rebel against it and call it trickery and foolishness.” He bitterly laughs and continues, “And quite frankly, the position of Warden-Commander was one that was always meant for Mahariel and not for me.”

“Are you going to reject Weisshaupt’s directive then?” Clarel inquires.

Alistair shakes his head again. He’s told the same answer to others, and he’ll say the same to this Clarel. “No,” he says. “That’s not what Mahariel would’ve wanted. If anything, I’ll head to whatever place Queen Anora offers up as a new refuge and headquarters for the Wardens. I’ll start there and do what Mahariel once did.”

“Which is?” Clarel asks.

Alistair leans down to set the sapling firmly in the pit that he’s dug. He puts some of the dirt back and smoothes it over as he says, “Mahariel didn’t get all of our allies to come to Denerim because she was intimidating or because she forced them to via our treaties. She got them to come because she was genuine and honest about what she was doing. Because she was always doing good, no matter where she went, saving the most people and all that stuff you hear about in hero’s stories and things like that.”

Once the sapling is securely planted, Alistair straightens and looks Clarel directly in the eye. “I don’t want to be a hero, but I think that there was something worthwhile in what Mahariel believed in,” he says. “And if rebuilding the Warden Order and protecting Ferelden is what Mahariel would’ve done, then I would gladly do it, Weisshaupt be damned.”

“A noble idea and a noble decision,” Clarel offers.

Alistair cracks a smile at that. “That’s what Mahariel was,” he says. “Noble in all the right ways.”

Clarel glances down at the sapling that he just planted, but thankfully, she makes no comment about it. Instead, she says, “Very well, I will let Warden-Commander Fontaine know. Please feel free to send us a letter at Jader whenever you wish. We will deploy and join you as soon as you feel like there is a need.”

“Thank you,” Alistair says. He inclines his head towards her and says, “I truly appreciate it. I hope there’s no misunderstanding when it comes to what I decided on.”

Clarel laughs softly at that. “No, we are no stranger to the strength and stubbornness of the infamous Fereldan national pride. No worries about that. Good luck, Warden-Commander Theirin.”

With that, she takes her leave. Alistair watches her go, and he rolls around the title in his head. _Warden-Commander Theirin._ It feels strange to think about. He glances down at the sapling. Alistair may not have a carved Dalish staff, but he hopes that this sapling from the vhenadahl will be enough.

In the distance, a raven caws. Alistair looks up, and the raven meets his gaze. It’s too intelligent, too _aware,_ for a regular bird, and Alistair musters up a weak smile. He offers the raven a small salute, and the raven dips into a facsimile of a bow. After that, the raven takes flight and leaves towards the horizon, growing smaller and smaller from Alistair’s perspective as it searches for something new.

Alistair looks back at the small sapling and makes a new promise.

Mahariel died to protect Ferelden. She died to buy him time. He’ll do his best to protect Ferelden as well. He’ll do his best to spend his time wisely.


	2. in war, victory

Amaranthine is broken apart into several pieces and so is Vigil’s Keep.

They are broken on a physical as well as on a mental level. The buildings have been devastated by darkspawn attacks, and the morale among the people ia exceptionally low. Alistair surveys his new responsibility and quietly debates on whether or not if it’s too late to back out.

He doesn’t think so. He’s already the new arl of Amaranthine, the new owner of Vigil’s Keep, and the new Warden-Commander of the Grey in Ferelden. There’s too much duty foisted onto his shoulders, and he’s not particularly confident in his ability to hold all of it up.

How did Mahariel do it? Alistair wishes she was here if only to give advice. But then again, he thinks that Mahariel would have said something along the lines of “you’re going to be fine, Alistair” or “trust in yourself” or some equally trite saying. But Mahariel had a knack of making them so completely genuine.

At least he gets some expensive cheese out of it. Anora sends over a cheese wheel as a present one day, and Alistair eats at least half of it in one sitting. After all, he has to keep up his Grey Warden stamina.

Cheese aside, Alistair doesn’t know how to fix the shambles of Vigil’s Keep. Of course, with his terrible luck, there was a darkspawn attack the _minute_ he stepped onto the grounds. He and his newfound recruits had to fight through each and every one. There was even a talking darkspawn.

And Alistair really doesn’t like that. He liked it much better when they only grunted and yelled a lot. A talking darkspawn was just too creepy for his personal liking.

He also kinda wishes that he accepted Clarel and Warden-Commander Fontaine’s offer of support. He has exceptionally little idea as to what he’s doing. Is there a broken building? Alistair doesn’t know how to fix that. So he hires a dwarf who does know how to fix it. That would be a far better option. Alistair doesn’t think he could patch together a wall, much less fix an entire building. Are there not enough Wardens? Alistair doesn’t know Warden-Commander Fontaine’s address, so he just goes out and recruits a couple of new Wardens. Most of them end up surviving the Joining, and he’s grateful for that.

Is there a man from the Howe family who tried to break into Vigil’s Keep and steal some of his family’s possessions back? Alistair doesn’t really want to execute him; it seems a bit like overkill. So, he just recruits him and puts him through the Joining. The same goes for an irritable elf killing human merchants and a mage running away from templars. Recruitment and then the Joining. It solves two problems at once, and Alistair’s good with that.

Alistair just feels like he’s fumbling through everything, but at least his luck is on his side and making everything relatively okay.

The one thing that he can’t particularly deal with is the nobility leftover in Amaranthine. Nobles are a pain in the ass, no matter where they’re from. The minor power vacuum between Rendon Howe’s death and Alistair’s new appointment was enough to send the nobles into a tizzy, and Alistair is tired of dealing with it. It’s not something that he can fix as easily as hiring someone else to fix it or slamming it with a shield until it goes away.

Actually, Alistair thinks that he could slam some sense into some nobles with his shield, but as an arl, he’s supposed to be above that kind of stuff. A real shame.

He comes to Vigil’s Keep, expecting another argument from a noble to settle, but he finds someone else entirely. There’s a woman in the reception room wearing an intricate and expensive-looking dress, but the thing that sets her apart is the carefully-wrought armor she wears on top of her dress and the sword and dagger that hang from her belt. The armor is hammered thin and made of silverite, and it’s fashioned in such a way that it makes it seem like part of the entire outfit she’s got on. It looks natural on her and seems like a new fashion trend. However, she carries herself with the familiar stance of a warrior. Alistair is sure that this noblewoman could handle her own in a fight.

“Hello, Warden-Commander Theirin,” she says pleasantly when she sees him. She dips into a small curtsy, and some of the plates of her armor clink against each other as she moves. “My name is Elissa Cousland.”

“Oh. Hullo there,” Alistair awkwardly says. He bobs into some sort of half-bow and waves at her. “I’m Alistair. Nice to meet you.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well,” she replies. “I simply stopped by Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine to see if there was anything of my family’s belongings left in Rendon Howe’s quarters and personal warehouses.”

Alistair cocks his head and asks, “Oh, why is that?” He has no idea who Elissa Cousland is, but he’s not too fussed. If she wants her stuff back, let her take her stuff back.

“Ah,” she says after a moment’s worth of silence. “I see you don’t know.”

Alistair scratches the back of his neck and says, “Sorry, I’m not in the loop as much here. What happened?”

Elissa Cousland exhales out softly before she says firmly, “Rendon Howe attacked my family home in Highever and slaughtered my family.” Her voice grows harder as she continues, “My brother only survived because he wasn’t home, and I survived because I killed every single assassin who tried to kill me. After that, my mother sacrificed herself to buy me enough time to escape.”

“Maker, I’m so sorry,” Alistair breathes out. He’s aghast at what she’s saying, and now, he thinks he can place her in his memory.

Rendon Howe was Teyrn Loghain’s lackey, doing despicable acts that rivaled the gravity of Loghain’s own actions. When Mahariel found out that he was abusing the elves of the alienage and torturing his prisoners, that was enough to stoke her slow and wrathful fury. She murdered the Butcher of Denerim without the usual bitter remorse in her eyes when it came to death and destruction. She struck the final blow with cool eyes and bid him good riddance.

A vicious smile curls its way across Lady Cousland’s face as she coolly says, “No need to be sorry. I hear that the Hero of Ferelden — Warden Mahariel, yes? — killed him while he was in Denerim. Excellent. I hope he suffered when she killed him. The man was the architect of his own demise and deserved a thousand deaths.”

The murderous look that glints in Lady Cousland’s eyes sends a soft note of alarm skittering down the back of Alistair’s mind, but he supposed that Rendon Howe was simply the type of man to inspire such vehemence in a great deal of people. He clears his throat. “Ahem,” he coughs before he asks, “So, how can I help you, Lady Cousland?”

Lady Cousland smiles and says, “I’ve already been through some warehouses in Amaranthine and removed the few personal articles I found. Nothing much, just a few sentimental items like a portrait of my mother or an old locket. I’ve already received permission from the Queen in the reclaimal of my family’s belongings, so I came here to manage that bit of business. My brother is handling the work I started in Highever for now.”

“It’s good that the Blight is over then,” Alistair tries. “Gives us all some peace and quiet and time to recover, rebuild, grow back together and all that.”

“Yes, it is good,” Lady Cousland hums. She taps the pommel of her sword as she says, “I would much rather not have darkspawn contaminating my childhood home.” She pauses and lifts her hand off her pommel to gesture to Alistair. “I also heard that you were made the new arl of Amaranthine.”

“It’s not a title that I relish,” Alistair grumbles. He raises an eyebrow and says, “You can have it if you want it. If Rendon Howe destroyed your home, then you can have his.”

“Quite frankly, I do not want a single bit of what he touched,” Lady Cousland says. “I also think that Ferelden has had enough of destruction, so the destruction of Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine would be pointless. Better it be used to rebuild the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. But you would give up such riches and land so easily?”

Alistair shrugs, “Why not? It’s not something that I originally owned nor was it something I ever really wanted in the first place. I’m an easy person to satisfy. Just a few wheels of nice cheese and a cozy room to stay instead of sleeping in the Deep Roads or something like that.”

Lady Cousland chuckles, “It is rare to meet someone who can give up material wealth so easily. No matter; it makes you a stronger person than most nobles in the Bannorn. If you require any assistance with the political or economical side of business of running an arling, I am always available to help.”

Alistair extends a hand to shake Lady Cousland’s hand and says, “Thanks for the offer. I might need it later, but I’m just focusing on fixing up the city and the fortress while building the Order back up.”

Lady Cousland delicately shakes his hand but gives him a surprisingly firm squeeze before she lets go. “Completely understandable,” she murmurs. Alistair can feel the calluses on her hands, honed and made from what must have been years of training.

“Do you want to be a Warden?” Alistair suddenly asks. “You could be a great one if you wanted to be.”

Elissa Cousland covers her mouth with her hand as she laughs. “A few months before the Battle of Ostagar, Duncan came to my father in Highever,” she confides. “He tried to recruit me as well. I don’t know what it is about me that makes other Wardens try to recruit me. Thank you for the offer, but I am happy to rebuild Highever. My mother bought me time; I will not waste it.” She considers Alistair fully before she asks, “Are you truly satisfied with what you’re doing right now? There won’t be a Theirin on the throne anymore. Are you genuinely alright with that?”

Alistair can’t say that he wasn’t expecting this question from someone like Elissa Cousland. He’s found that this is a common question. “No, I believe Anora would be a decent queen,” he answers. “Mahariel made the right choice.”

Lady Cousland pins him with a gaze as flinty and hard as silverite when she asks, “Are you saying that because you were too afraid to become king or because you obey Mahariel’s orders?”

Alistair flinches and almost takes a step back. It’s a question that hits far too deeply for his own comfort, and he can’t meet Lady Cousland’s eyes. However, she sighs, “Ah, I see it is a mixture of both.” He slowly lifts his gaze to see Lady Cousland’s apologetic expression. She shrugs a little bit as she says, “My apologies. They say I’ve become more callous after the, ah, _incident_ at Highever. But frankly, I was always a touch too stubborn and candid, just like my mother and my father and my brother. Well, good day, Warden-Commander Theirin. Best of luck to you and your new arlship. Keep in touch.”

She dips into an easy curtsy, and Alistair rigidly bows back. Even when Lady Cousland finally leaves Vigil’s Keep, her words won’t stop circling around and around in his head.

Would he have chosen to become king? Would he had disobeyed a choice from Mahariel? What would Mahariel think of him and his decisions now? He was always satisfied to follow after Mahariel, but he can’t deny Lady Cousland’s incredibly astute observation.

He is afraid, and he hates that pure and simple fact. He still doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, and that fear plays another factor when he delves deeper into Amaranthine’s problems. Whether it be a political issue from Amaranthine or a Warden issue from the talking Architect from the Deep Roads, Alistair’s torn between what he’s afraid to commit to and what he thinks Mahariel’s orders would’ve been.

And so, as Amaranthine plunged into chaos around him, Alistair simply feels like he’s falling without any end to the madness. The Architect, the Mother, and nobles aside, Alistair finds himself slowly becoming mired in a mess of problems.

And he’s choking on it.

 

* * *

 

Amell dislikes traveling via boat.

Warden-Commander Fontaine ended up dividing some of their ranks and sending them across the sea towards the Free Marches. _Side-effect of conscripting too many Wardens without ever being able to use them,_ Amell supposes. They’re all supposed to meet with some Orlesian Warden stationed there named Stroud.

They depart immediately after the Hero of Ferelden’s funeral. Queen Anora may have allowed them to stay temporarily for the funeral, but the Fereldans have such little patience for Orlesians. Amell, as part of the Orlesian Wardens’ regiment, gets treated the same despite her original nationality. So, Warden-Commander Fontaine sends her off to the Free Marches.

She’s excited for the journey. She’s never had the opportunity to go beyond the Mage Tower by Lake Calenhad before, but now, she’s seen Orlais and she’ll see the Free Marches too.

But _Maker,_ why do boats have to sway so much?

The boat shakes and moves so much that she’s considering using a number of ice spells to make herself a bridge to the Free Marches. Some of the other Wardens are more used to sea travel and laugh at Amell, but she thinks that they’re all crazy masochists for enjoying the sea’s wild and tumultuous waves.

She almost kisses the ground when they land at Kirkwall’s docks. Amell swears that she’ll never go on another boat as long as she lives, but Leonie tells her that she’ll probably have to get on another boat if she ever wants to return to Ferelden. It’s a thought that makes her pause, but she quickly brushes Leonie off and stumbles towards the streets of Kirkwall from the docks.

As she shakily puts one step in front of the other, she’s too busy trying to regain her equilibrium to notice another man making his way towards the docks. Amell slams directly into the man and looks up to see a man with dark hair pulled back from his face and an exceptionally craggy nose. He blinks and tries to focus on Amell, and his face morphs into one of absolute disgust when his gaze goes down to the Grey Warden insignia emblazoned on Amell’s robes.

He pushes her away abruptly and snaps, “Watch where you’re going, _Warden.”_

He has a Ferelden accent, and Amell narrows her eyes. In her thickest Ferelden accent, she bites back, “I could say the same to you. You could’ve knocked me into the harbor. And perhaps, _you_ should be the one looking out for where you’re stepping, _ser.”_

He blinks at her again, once, twice, and Amell isn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it’s the novelty of finding your own countrymen in a foreign nation or perhaps it’s her abrupt rudeness. But Amell stands by her statement. Who is this man to be so rude?

He leans back and folds his arms as he regards Amell. “I wasn’t aware that it was in fashion to be so rude,” he finally says.

“I could ask the same of you,” Amell says tartly. “Who do I have the pleasure of being rude to then?”

He deliberates for a moment before he finally says, “Nathaniel.”

Amell squints at his face. There’s something familiar about the name and the face, but she can’t quite recall it. Well, if she forgot it, it must not have been incredibly important. “Amell. Lina Amell,” she tells him. “Watch where you’re going next time. Don’t want to run into a ruder person than me, right? For what it’s worth, my apologies. We both should’ve been more careful. Good day, ser.”

She meets up with the rest of the other Wardens at some shitty bar called the Hanged Man. They have a noose hanging on the door which seems a tad bit morbid, but most of the inhabitants there are too drunk to even care. There are a few other people nursing a drink in the bar.  Some do a double-take when they look at her and then crane their heads to look at some other woman in the back of the tavern with equally black hair. Amell doesn’t understand it. Maybe she looks like someone else they know? There’s a raucous group in the back playing Diamondback and led by a boisterous dwarf and the woman with the black hair. Stroud is at a round table waiting for them.

Amell recognizes him first by his Warden uniform. Stroud looks like a kind enough man. The Orlesian accent is thick on his tongue as he speaks. Amell tries to fumble through her Orlesian for his sake, but he laughs it off and tells her to speak in Common if it is more comfortable for her. Leonie and Elyon promise that they’ll teach her more Orlesian later, but for now, they focus on business.

There are a number of tunnels deep within Kirkwall and other parts of the Free Marches that have reached a record level of contamination. Stroud lays down his maps of the Deep Roads underneath Kirkwall alone and marks off various tunnels that are riddled with darkspawn. The Free Marches did not escape the touch of the Fifth Blight whether it be through the refugees pouring through the docks or the darkspawn rising in the tunnels.

According to some reports, there are instances of darkspawn digging new tunnels and expanding their reach. Stroud taps on the map in the areas where the digging is the most concentrated and says that they will have to go down and exterminate them before they compromised the integrity of the tunnels or the safety of the people above.

As expected, the Kaders are eager for any opportunity to return to the underground as opposed to operating more missions on the surface. Leonie looks a bit pale when Stroud tells them that they have to go underground again, but Amell and Elyon feel rather ambivalent about it. It is work to do, and the act of killing darkspawn is as equally unglorious in the dark compared to the light of the sun. There’s a streak of darkspawn blood across the bridge of her nose that dries down and becomes almost impossible to scrub off.

The Deep Roads in the Free Marches are different compared to the ones in Orlais. The ruins of dwarven architecture show slightly different styles, and Eram Kader points out little details such as the carvings in a fallen column or the different style of how dwarven runes are carved into some broken tablets they find.

The darkspawn also move and appear a little different. There are more hurlocks and ogres in the tunnels compared to the number of shrieks in Orlais. Elyon grumbles about how the Orlesians are more willing to send alienage elves to their deaths in Orlais, but he does say that a life in the Wardens is far better than a life of hunger and endless poverty in an Orlesian alienage. Nika Kader tells Amell that there are more genlocks in Fereldan tunnels because of Ferelden’s proximity to Orzammar. There are simply more broodmothers there stolen from Orzammar and old battles to support the genlock population.

Amell starts experimenting with different spells out of sheer boredom. They’ve spent so long in the Deep Roads that she’s lost track of the months. She’s always been trained in spirit and in creation, but here, she tests out spells of fire and ice. She figures out how to set up glyphs so that they explode on contact and set the darkspawn on fire. Now, she lines up her glyphs at the forefront of their battles and keeps her control on them in her right hand. With her left hand, she carries her staff and slams down spirit barriers and healing spells should they need it.

In the Deep Roads, her connection to the Fade is stronger. If she runs out of power, she sometimes pulls mana directly from the nodes of lyrium trapped inside the walls. Amell doesn’t dare drink it directly; she’s heard too many horror stories about people drinking raw, unrefined lyrium. That doesn’t stop her from directly tugging at the lyrium with her magic. Doing that makes her magic more explosive — more like a storm instead of a controlled stream of magic — but she has to do what it takes to kill the darkspawn.

Staying in the Deep Roads for so long also heightens her attunement to other Wardens and the Taint. By now, if Amell gets lost, she could track down Stroud and the others purely by how they feel on her Warden senses. Stroud has the strongest pull since he’s lived with the Warden Taint the longest, but it is a steady sensation that beats out the same rhythm as his heart. Leonie’s signal flickers bright like a flame on her radar while Elyon’s signal erratically shifts and changes over the course of the day. Nika and Eram Kader have signals that complement each other; one beats when the other one pauses to form one continuous signal together.

But it surprises Amell to sense another Warden’s signal far off in the distance. This Warden’s signal is unnaturally strong, and she can sense something tugging at the fabric of the Fade through the Veil. If she’s correct, there’s some sort of Warden down in these tunnels as well. Possibly some sort of mage? Amell shuts her eyes and concentrates on the tugging sensation that she can sense through the Veil. It’s so _strong._ Either an incredibly powerful mage or a spirit itself. Perhaps both.

Amell glances up and calls out, “Do you feel that?”

Stroud cocks his head and shuts one eye as he looks for the signal as well. “Yes,” he says. “Loud and clear. One of us.”

“Should we go look for them?” Leonie asks. “Perhaps we’ve received reinforcements.”

“I wasn’t expecting any,” Stroud murmurs. “No matter. We can go look. Amell, lead point since you caught the signal first. Kaders, I want you flanking her and keep an eye out for any incoming darkspawn. Andras, go center and keep your senses concentrated on searching for nearby darkspawn, and Caron and I will stay in the back with our swords and shields. Move out.”

They all fall into formation, and Amell advances with her staff raised high. She casts a bobbing magelight to hover along beside them. She doesn’t need it; her elven eyes enable her to see better in the dark than a human. But if this Warden is human or has any other companions with them, it may be easier to come closer to them with a light to signal peace rather than an ambush.

It takes time, but Amell tracks the faint signal. When the Warden’s signal falters, Amell relies on her spirit magic to track down any stray vibrations from other spirits and spells. She finds a thread of healing magic combined with a note of desperation. She can read the history of this person’s spell in the Fade if she tries hard enough, and what she sees concerns her. There is too much pain and too many wounds closed with these spells. This mage is an accomplished spirit healer, but this mage has tried to cover too many losses.

Then, in the distance, she can see the warm light of natural fire. Sourced from a flint and stone,  she thinks. Magical fire generally had a cooler tone to it. Amell clears her throat and calls out, “Hello? We are the Grey Wardens of the Free Marches.”

“Who is that?” Amell hears.

“Grey Wardens?” another voice chimes in. “I thought I sensed them, but I didn’t know that you all were this close. We need you.”

Amell squints when she hears the voice. It’s unnaturally familiar, and the cadences of both voices are undeniably Fereldan. Both voices are male, but the second voice makes her pause.

She straightens her Warden armor and sets her shoulders straight before she strides further down into the tunnel and into the cavern that these people have taken shelter in. She readjusts herself to the increased light and surveys the room.

The first thing Amell sees is a body of a woman lying prone on the floor close to the campfire. She’s covered with a blanket, but Amell can see the black veins and the pale eyes of the Taint on her face. She’s already dead, but judging from the state of her body and the state of her skin, Amell suspects that she was newly killed. A mercy killing, if anything. Another woman with dark hair and a streak of blood across her nose is knelt beside the woman’s body with a bloodied knife and tears still streaked across her cheeks. She lifts her face to give Amell a mournful gaze with her startling blue eyes.

Across the fire, there’s a dwarf and an elf with silver markings across his skin. They both have the same grief across their faces, and Amell inclines her head towards them out of respect. But Amell’s voice catches in her throat when she sees the only person standing at the very back of the cavern.

It’s a face that she hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Amell?” Anders breathes out. He steps forward, and as he does, the light of the fire sheds light on his armor. Blue and silver, a griffin emblazoned across the Fereldan-style mage’s armor. It is undeniably Grey Warden in origin, and when Amell reaches out to test her senses against his, she can feel the Taint and the vortex of spirit magic in him.

Amell takes one shaky step forward before she breaks into a sprint and tackles him into a hug. “Anders,” she chokes out. “It’s you.”

Anders easily catches her and swings her around in a wide hug. There are so many memories that filter through Amell’s head now. Anders was like a brother to her when she first came to the Circle, and they studied creation and spirit magic together for weeks on end. He always tried to escape and later told her stories about them when he was inevitably dragged back. When she went through her Harrowing, he was in solitary confinement, but he sent her a congratulations letter from his cell when she survived.

“How did you end up here?” Amell breathily asks.

“I could ask the same of you,” Anders says. He pulls back just enouh to study Amell’s face. She doesn’t know what he’s concluded, but he says, “I can’t believe you’re a Warden. I thought you were sent to Orlais? At least, that’s what I heard after I came out of solitary.”

“A Grey Warden tried to conscript me in Ferelden after the whole Jowan thing, but I refused out of stubborn pride,” Amell admits. “When the Orlesian Wardens came ‘round to my Circle, I was the first one to volunteer. I didn’t want to pass up another opportunity like that.”

She glances over at the woman’s body and whispers, “Anders, what happened here?”

The expression of Anders settles back down into tired, aching grief, and he quietly replies, “A friend of mine, we… We all came down here on an expedition to the Deep Roads. Supposed to make us rich, see, and we were all supposed to get out with a larger group.”

“But then my ass of a brother betrayed us for a pretty, red rock,” the dwarf speaks up. He stands up and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’m Varric. This broody elf here is Fenris, and the lady over there is Hawke. We got trapped down in the Deep Roads and have been trying to make our way out ever since.”

“And you survived this long?” Amell gapes.

“No,” Hawke finally says. She stands up. and her arms hang limply by her sides. The bloodied dagger is still in her hands. “We didn’t. My sister, Bethany, paid the price and got the Taint. We… We gave her a mercy killing a few minutes ago.”

“No,” Amell says, aghast. She kneels by the body and asks, “May I?”

“She’s already dead,” Hawke says softly. “There’s nothing more that we can do. Go ahead.”

Amell pulls back the cloth and inspects Bethany’s body. Stroud and the others come near as Amell studies the body. Bethany’s eyes are glazed over, but they turned completely pale. If she took after her sister, then the blue would have been bleached out far faster than if she had brown irises. Her skin feels too paper-thin under Amell’s touch, and the black veins spread out across her extremities. The Taint in her body was too advanced, and she understands how they must’ve come across the conclusion that they did.

Amell looks up and beckons to Anders. She casts a thin veil of magic over Bethany and whispers in the barest of breaths, “We could’ve done the Joining for her, and maybe she would’ve survived it. Look at her. The Taint is as far as her wrists and ankles, but through the screen of magic, I think we could’ve salvaged what we could. Shut your eyes and test her organs and her blood.”

It’s an esoteric bit of magic that she does to show him. Most spirit healers advise against manipulating or seeing through blood for medical problems, but Amell is no average healer. She was taught the Dalish arts of healing by Enchanter Mahariel, and she isn’t afraid to get her hands bloodied. Never blood magic, never that, no, but this? This is merely identification. Anders lays his hand over her outstretched hand and widens his eyes as he realizes the crux of the matter.

The Taint hasn’t wrapped around her heart, her lungs, and too much of her brain yet. Her vital organs were still relatively intact despite the blackened veins and bleached eyes. Stroud had a vial of Archdemon’s blood hanging from his neck for Joinings that he kept with him at all times for safekeeping, so they could’ve had an impromptu Joining for the poor woman.

They could have bought Bethany Hawke more time.

Anders looks absolutely stricken, and Amell bows her head. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

“What do you mean?” Hawke asks. Her voice rises, sharp and panicky, at the end of her question.

Amell exchanges a glance with Anders and wonders if she should say anything. But it’s too late. Hawke’s piercing gaze flickers between Amell and Anders before it settles on Amell. “You could’ve saved her,” Hawke says slowly. She shakes her head and steps away from them as she moans, “Oh no, you could have bought her more time. What have I done? What have I _done?”_ She drops her dagger and weeps, “I killed my sister. I killed my baby sister. First Carver, and now, Bethany. Oh, _Bethy.”_

“You couldn’t have known and neither could’ve Anders,” Amell tries. “It’s an exceptionally rare spell not practiced by most healers. We barely noticed that Anders was here, so we may have been too late regardless.”

Hawke lifts her head up to gaze at Amell wearily. “Thank you for trying,” she says. She chokes back a sob and raises her chin higher to ward off her tears. “But it doesn’t help. I’ve already lost a brother to the darkspawn, and now, I lost a sister to the darkspawn. Fate and the Maker are cruel like that.” She reaches down to fold Bethany’s hands over her chest and rearranges her hair so that it looks like she’s resting. “The best thing you could do for us now is to lead us back to the surface.”

Amell glances back at Stroud who nods. “We can do that,” she says. “We’ll take you to the closest entrance. Where are you from?”

“Kirkwall,” Varric answers. “We just need to get back to the surface, and we can find our way back home from there.”

“Thank you,” Anders murmurs. He reaches out to squeeze Amell’s hand and says, “Truly. Thank you.”

After they hold a small funeral for Bethany, Stroud guides them all and changes their route so that they go to the closest entrance that’s near Kirkwall. Varric gives exceptionally little detail about their expedition, but Amell spots the gold in their rucksacks. Late at night — or what Amell considers to be night in the underground — Anders secretly tells her the real reason behind the expedition.

Hawke was here out of good reasons and good intentions. An adventure with gold at the end seemed to be the better option to her rather than selling her body in the red light district or signing another contract with the smugglers’ or mercenaries’ guilds in Kirkwall. Well, Amell can’t blame her. And they _did_ succeed. It was just the “getting home” bit and “dying from Taint” bits that happened along the way.

“I just don’t know how it went downhill so quickly,” Anders sighs. He shakes his head. “I just don’t know. I know I said I never wanted go back to the Wardens — and I hope that your other friends aren’t listening in — but my time with the Wardens was actually more successful than this.”

“Oh yeah,” Amell says. “You spent time with that new Warden-Commander in Ferelden. What’s he like? Warden-Commander Fontaine almost sent me to Amaranthine to help him out, but he refused to have any Orlesian Wardens in Vigil’s Keep.”

Anders shrugs. “Warden-Commander Theirin? Apparently, he was a templar drop-out. That’s how he phrased it, but he was dropped off at some monastery once an arl’s wife decided that she didn’t want to deal with him anymore.”

“Oh, that’s harsh,” Amell winces. “But wasn’t he the one who worked with Warden Mahariel? The Hero of Ferelden and everything?”

Anders nods. “He’s nice. Completely opposes templar rhetoric. He saw me blast a lightning spell at a templar, shrugged, and then threatened to put the templar in the Deep Roads when the templar tried to take me back to the Circle.”

“Oh, now I like the sound of _that._ Shame I never went to Amaranthine. Imagine if we met there instead. All the shenanigans we would’ve gotten up to,” Amell muses. “I heard some nasty things about Amaranthine though.”

“Vigil’s Keep almost got destroyed,” Anders complained. “I also killed more darkspawn than Nathaniel but he refuses to admit it. We killed a broodmother that talked. There was another darkspawn that talked, but it got away before we could stab it again.”

“Nathaniel?” Amell asks.

Anders nods. “Nathaniel Howe, son of that guy who killed the teyrn of Highever and sold a bunch of elves from the Denerim alienage into slavery,” he says. He waves Amell off when she shoots him a concerned gaze. “It’s fine. Nathaniel isn’t his father. He’s gotten over his strange complex, survived an encounter with Lady Cousland whose family his father killed, and won a drinking game with the Warden-Commander. Alright, the drinking game bit wasn’t hard to do, but Nathaniel’s doing alright now.”

“Does he look exceptionally bitter, have a too-large nose, and have dark hair that’s slicked back?” Amell asks.

Anders wrinkles his brow and slowly says, “Yes? Why do you know him?”

Amell offers him an awkward smile. “We almost knocked each other into Kirkwall’s harbor?”

Anders grimaces, “I’m not even going to ask more about that.”

Amell leans back against the cavern wall and sighs, “What are we even doing, Anders?”

“Exactly,” Anders says as he stares up at the rocky ceiling. “But we got out of the Circle.”

“But we paid a heavy price for it,” Amell murmurs. “Did you know, I told the Grey Wardens that I would sue them if I got kidney damage from the Joining? And then I passed out, but I apparently said that.”

“Somehow, that is exactly what I would’ve expected from you,” Anders snorts. “But we’re Wardens, and we’re a mess.”

“We really are,” Amell agrees.

“Do you think we’ll survive this?”

“We have no other choice but to survive with the time that we have left, Anders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the shortest chapter by far, but it's more of a transitory phase between origins and inquisition :") hope you don't mind!


	3. in peace, vigilance

Alistair regrets a lot of things. It's becoming a bad habit of his.

He regrets eating cheese that had too mcuh mold on it. His stomach hurts now. He also regrets not adopting a mabari puppy of his own. Dog died of grief after Mahariel died, and Alistair’s never quite been able to get over that either. But he wishes he adopted a mabari puppy.

But he also regrets more serious things as well. He looks at the state of Ferelden, and anger roils dangerously high in his heart. Mahariel did not die for Ferelden to be torn apart. What is Anora doing? He watches how the events unfold, from Amaranthine to the Chantry explosion, and he wonders what would have happened if he chose to become king.

Elissa Cousland’s words ring in his head again, and again, he wonders what could’ve happened. For one, he wouldn’t have handled the mage issue like that. He doesn’t want to be cocky and say that the Conclave explosion wouldn’t have happened. That was a bomb waiting to explode no matter what happened. But if Anora properly dealt with the issue of the Circle and the ensuing panic from the Mage-Chantry War, the mages at Redcliffe wouldn’t have been so desperate enough to join the Venatori.

Was Mahariel right in making her decision? He knows that he told her that he didn’t want the weight of the crown, and that’s one of the reasons why she chose what she chose. But even then, he can’t help but ruefully think that this is one of the choices Mahariel made that was wrong.

But then again, how could Mahariel — or any of them for that matter — predict this kind of future? Furthermore, Alistair supposes that there is some fault to him though. If only he kept up stronger ties with the Orlesian Wardens, he could’ve seen this coming. Warden-Commander Fontaine was long gone to her Calling, but at least he could’ve kept in touch with Clarel. He could’ve foreseen this before it was too late. Oh, he tried. Certainly, he tried. Let it never be said that Alistair Theirin never _tried._

But it didn’t work. Now, he’s stuck balls-deep in the Fade staring at a monstrous Nightmare with too many eyes.

Behind the Nightmare, the promising glitter of green glows through the haze of the Fade. Alistair glances back to look at the Inquisitor and Hawke. Hawke, for one, looks almost haunted, and her eyes are hollow. Judging from their conversations, Alistair doesn’t think Hawke has taken the past several years well. She’s lost everything from her family to her home multiple times. Even when they were hiding from other Wardens in Crestwood together, Hawke had a certain emptiness to her that set Alistair on edge.

Lady Inquisitor Trevelyan, on the other hand, gazes at the Nightmare impassively. Gone is the fear that wracked over her face. Now, her expression is more akin to a mask than anything else, forged out of pure spite and petty fury. She arches an eyebrow at the Nightmare and turns back to the rest of the party. “Someone will have to stay behind and serve as a distraction for the Nightmare,” she declares. “It would be a noble sacrifice.” She raises up her left hand, and the Anchor sputters balefully in response.

“What?” Alistair asks. His voice is sharper than he intends it to be, but then again, it always is with this heartless wretch of an Inquisitor. “What do you mean by sacrifice? We can’t afford to lose anyone!”

“In death, sacrifice,” Trevelyan quotes. “Isn’t that part of your motto, Warden-Commander Theirin? I thought you understood the necessity of sacrifice.”

“Not when it isn’t necessary,” Alistair hisses. He has had enough of sacrifice. First with Mahariel and now, with countless people lost to the tides of war and the Exalted March that Trevelyan plans to lead.

“She’s right,” Hawke suddenly says. “And you know I don’t like agreeing with that woman. There’s no other way to get past the Nightmare to that rift.”

“We can find a different one,” Alistair stubbornly says. “There are rifts all over Thedas, so we can just find another one and get back to our world from there.”

“That takes time that we do not have, _Warden-Commander Theirin,”_ Inquisitor Trevelyan snaps. She says his name with a vicious, curling tone before lifting her chin, daring him to continue.

Hawke shoots Alistair a withering look, and Alistair bristles. He doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want to have another person lay down their life for his. “Then, I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll hold the Nightmare off.”

Hawke steps forward and pulls Alistair back by his shoulder. “What do you mean?” she snaps. “You’re the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. You can’t just go and throw away your own life like that.”

Trevelyan considers them both and murmurs, “Well, well, well. Always lovely to have a volunteer. But if we are going to discuss worth, then there is no one better to discuss it with than me.” She weighs both of them with her gaze before she says, “Losing Hawke would be a great deal to Varric, I suppose. It would make him very sad indeed. But also, Hawke is correct. I cannot deny the value of a Warden-Commander. What worth does Alistair have in comparison to Hawke? Perhaps I could use him later. Worth more than emotional value, I suppose.”

Hawke turns on Trevelyan and snaps, “Is that all you consider us to be? Values and numbers on some grand scale of influence?”

“I weigh lives in my hands every day, Champion,” Trevelyan says as she spreads her hands wide. “At some point, I must consider the numbers before I make a decision in order to reap the most benefit. Right now, you do not have much worth to me. I can find another Champion, and if not, I can make a Champion myself. All I have to do is find someone plucky enough. You are not essential.”

Hawke laughs, and Alistair can see the disbelief stretched wide across her pale face. “So, you consider nothing else but numbers,” she says. “Are you sure that bias doesn’t play a factor in your grand scheme? Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” Trevelyan confirms.

“So, what about me siding with the mages at the Battle of Kirkwall?” Hawke challenges. “That’s something that you’ve continuously berated me about ever since I stepped foot into Skyhold.”

Trevelyan sniffs, “A poor decision.”

“You choosing to sacrifice me has zero influence from that factor? You don’t have a single bit of bias influencing your decisions?”

“I am not that petty, Miss Hawke.”

“Ha. That’s what you’d like to say,” Hawke says flatly. She advances on Trevelyan as she continues to speak, “I know people like you, Trevelyan. Oh, I’m sorry. _Lady_ Trevelyan, _Lady_ Inquisitor, _Herald_ of Andraste, whichever title you’re in the mood for. I know people like you, and they always left scars on the people around them.”

She grabs Trevelyan by her collar, and by virtue of her taller height, she shakes Trevelyan before she lets her go. Hawke stalks away but says sharply, “I’ll do what you ask, but not for you. _Never_ for you. I’m buying you all more time out of my own accord so that the people I love will survive this, so that the Anchor can get out of the Fade and banish Corypheus once and for all, so that the Wardens can continue on and prevent the darkspawn from ever hurting someone again.” She turns to point her finger viciously and repeats, “But _not_ for you.”

Hawke glances over at Alistair, and her expression crumbles. Alistair can see the emptiness again. “Live well, Alistair,” she murmurs. “Tell Varric that he was my best friend, the best there ever was. And rebuild the Wardens. They’re in shambles now, yes, but please. My brother and sister would’ve appreciated it. I trust you, Alistair. You’re an honorable man. Moreso than others in this party.” She shoots a dirty glance at Trevelyan when she says that.

She stretches her arms to the sky and sighs, “Ah, what would a standard hero say in this scenario? What would Varric write? He’s always been trying to paint me as some sort of hero. Hm, something like ‘live well and prosper’ or something dramatic like that. But yes. Live well and prosper.” In a softer, gentler voice, she whispers, “I’ll see you soon, Bethany, Carver, Mother. I’ll see you soon.”

Without waiting for anyone to speak up, Hawke whips her daggers out of their sheathes and starts sprinting towards the demon. She rolls underneath a writhing tentacle that slithers up from the ground and crashes towards her. With one deft stab, she dispatches the tentacle. The Nightmare bellows out a roar and moves its many legs towards Hawke. Its legs stab into the ground with vicious force, but Hawke is there with caltrops and daggers and the few traps she has left.

Alistair stares after her with abject horror, but Trevelyan yanks him back by his wrist. “Do not waste my time,” she hisses. “We are living on borrowed seconds. Do _not_ waste it.” She sprints down the hill as well towards the rift, and her Anchor glows brighter and brighter with each step he takes.

With absolute misery drenching his footsteps, Alistair follows after Trevelyan.

Yet another sacrifice leaves him alive. Yet another sacrifice buys him more wretched time.

 

* * *

 

Amell is never agreeing to visit Warden-Commander Clarel de Chanson again.

Amell still has chains on her wrists and her ankles, and the enchantments engraved into the metal dig into her skin, suppressing any magic that she can summon up. Her hair is matted, and the wounds on her body are barely clotted over. She’s the only surviving prisoner left. All of the others have either died from their wounds or have already been sacrificed to Livius Erimond’s rituals.

She _knew_ that Erimond fellow was suspicious. The kinds of rituals that he was suggesting to Clarel violated the normal approach to spirit binding. Well, not that spirit binding was ever a proper hobby to begin with, but Amell knew that something was off.

Another thing that made her suspicious was the Calling. Despite being a Warden for a decent amount of years, there was something fundamentally wrong about newly made Wardens experiencing the Calling right away. If Stroud was correct, the source of the signal was also far from the locations of the remaining Archdemons. She and Stroud tried to speak up, but it was to no avail. She was chained down and bled to fuel various spells of Erimond’s choosing.

She had to watch as her fellow brothers and sisters of the Order willingly sacrificed themselves and spilled their blood across the stones. “In death, sacrifice,” they intoned before they plunged the knives in deep.

Amell rolls over and struggles to sit up. She winces from the pain of her barely-closed wounds, but she cranes her head and tries to get a better look at what’s going on. There’s more magical activity, resonating down the Veil, and she can feel the harsh tug of the false Calling with more intensity. Something is happening above ground.

After a while, the sensations die down, and Amell slumps against the wall of the cell. Once again, she wonders if Stroud made it out alive and warned someone. Amell personally suggested the Ferelden Warden-Commander because Weisshaupt had gone silent and was too far away anyways.

The door to the dungeon slams open, and Amell jolts up. She squints her eyes, trying to adjust to the light, and makes out the shape of two figures staggering in. They’re wearing the familiar Warden blues. There’s a jingling sound accompanying them as they walk, and Amell hopes that it’s the jingle of keys.

She’s rewarded when she looks up to see Elyon and Leonie’s haggard faces through the cell bars. Elyon raises the keys up and weakly smiles. “Guess what I stole,” he says.

They quickly get her out of her bindings and tell her what’s been going on. The infamous Inquisitor has made her way to Adamant Fortress herself to put down Erimond. Amell can’t bring herself to agree with someone like the Inquisitor, but she’s glad that someone finally came to stop the madness. In hushed whispers, Leonie tells Amell that the Champion of Kirkwall and Warden-Commander Theirin came as well.

“What about Stroud?” Amell hurries to ask. “I sent him after Warden-Commander Theirin. He must be here if the Warden-Commander is here.”

Leonie shakes her head. “We haven’t seen him.”

“What about the Kaders?” Amell asks.

Elyon and Leonie share a long, heavy glance before Elyon says, “Near death, if anything. They were slated for sacrifice, but we managed to save them and drag them over to a nearby parapet. We were hoping you could heal them. You’re the only healer out of us all.”

“And any other mages — even if there were healers among them — are mostly demons or dead now,” Leonie murmurs.

Amell grits her teeth and starts to stumble out of the dungeon with even more haste. She will not let her friends die. She’s watched enough of them die from Erimond’s madness; she will not lose more.

Her anger flares up with an intense vigor when she first sees the broken, bloodied bodies littering the fortress. Some are misshapen and warped: products of the rituals. Others were sacrificed or lost in battle. Amell thinks that she can identify a few survivors that still have barely-moving chests. Automatically, she triages the few survivors she can spot in her mind. She can save the ones near the wall first; their breaths seem the strongest and their wounds seem the mildest. She could manipulate some of the blood in their bodies and reroute it back to their rightful paths. Another trick taught by Enchanter Mahariel. Again, it wasn’t exactly blood magic but followed the natural paths of the bodies.

Amell takes a step forward but freezes when she sees a soldier dressed in a different uniform bring his sword sharply down into one of the surviving Wardens. Other soldiers dressed in the same colors do the same with other survivors, and Amell gapes at them with horror suffusing her face. She sprints towards them, ignoring the pain shooting up her legs, and screams, “What are you doing?!”

The first soldier looks up and now, Amell can see the flaming eye emblazoned on his breastplate. “Following orders, ma’am,” he says warily. “The Lady Inquisitor ordered us to put down all the Wardens. No mercy, she said, for people who turned to twisted blood magic to guide their Maker-forsaken paths.”

“Not all of them were guilty!” Amell snaps back. She’s heard her fair share about the Lady Inquisitor, but she never knew that the Inquisitor would be this monstrous. Amell turns on her heel and desperately searches for Leonie and Elyon. They’re already scaling the steps, trying to outrun some scouts who are heading towards the parapets. Amell chase after them, and fear clots in her throat faster than her wounds.

She pushes the soldiers and scouts out of the way, and when they protest, she uses latent tendrils of mana in the air to speed her steps. Amell finally catches up to Leonie and Elyon who are fending off Inquisition forces from the Kaders. Amell kneels down by their side, and Nika painfully turns her head towards Amell. “Good to see you, kidney girl,” she chokes out.

Tears spring up to Amell’s eyes as she hovers her hands over Nika’s skin. “Good to see you too,” she whispers as she magically probes Nika’s wounds. She starts stitching together the ones that she can, but she doesn’t know if she has enough energy to spare for Eram. Even if she does heal Nika’s most critical wounds, she won’t be able to erase the scars.

Amell’s gaze drifts over to Eram. Nika follows her gaze with a dogged stubbornness and grips onto Amell’s hand. “If you have to sacrifice me to save him, so be it,” she whispers. “Keep him alive, keep him safe. Even if you have to give up on me to do it.”

“No,” Amell fiercely replies. “I’ll save you both. Just watch me.”

She glances down at her own lacerations. Erimond’s work. He liked experimenting with blood as a hobby, and Amell and the other survivors were his personal supply of blood. She wonders if it’s worth it to fall back on blood magic. She knows how to manipulate it in the body; why couldn’t she do it with other forms? Amell looks at Elyon and Leonie, still arguing with Inquisition soldiers.

No, she can’t risk it. If she uses blood magic here, then there will be countless witnesses. It’ll just be another excuse for that monster of an Inquisitor to murder them all.

Amell shuts her eyes and diverts her energy towards healing Nika’s worst wounds. Then, with another hand on Eram, she probes for his critical spots as well. She heals them, one hand on each body, and squeezes as much as energy as she possibly can out of her weak frame.

Lina Amell has survived the Harrowing, the Circle, the Joining, the Deep Roads. She will survive this as well.

Nika and Eram slowly stir while Amell sways. She has to slump against the wall of the parapet and steady herself as the world spins around her. Leonie offers Amell support, and they stumble down the steps again. Elyon quietly passes Amell a vial of lyrium, and the Inquisition forces gaze at them balefully.

“I dunno,” one says as he scratches his head. “Orders are orders.”

“That does not give you an excuse to purposefully murder someone for such a meaningless reason,” Leonie snaps back. “Most of them were innocents or sacrificed against their own will. Murderers, all of you, filthy and disgusting murderers.” In a low, furious tone, Leonie snarls, “And your fool of an Inquisitor is the worst out of you all.”

Some of the soldiers protest, but the others exchange glances with worried looks in their eyes. Among their ranks, a large and burly Qunari shoulders his way until he reaches them. “Healer?” he gruffly asks Amell.

Amell blankly nods, and he jerks his thumb back behind him. “My boys and I have tried to keep some of the Warden survivors protected and alive,” he says. “I can’t do much for them. I’ve been shoving elfroot down their throats. But you can.”

“Why?” Amell manages to get out. “Aren’t you with _them?”_

A strange look crosses over the Qunari’s face. In a voice so soft that Amell can barely hear it, he says, “I don't belong to the Inquisition. They pay me, sure, but they don’t own me. I belong to something else entirely.”

A long, rattling sigh escapes Amell’s lips, and she slowly extricates herself from Leonie’s grip. She shuffles over to the Qunari’s side and says, “Lead me there. I might fall over and die at some point between here and there, but I’ll do my best.” That makes the Qunari laugh, and Amell wryly quirks her lips. “After all,” she comments. “I didn’t survive this long without a reason. Too stubborn to roll over and die easily, I suppose.”

He waves his hand at Amell to show her the missing stumps of a few fingers. “I can get behind that,” he says. “I’m the Iron Bull, and I’m pretty damn stubborn too. Now, let’s patch up some of your people back together.”

Amell thinks she hears him mutter something like “orders from Boss be damned” but she can’t tell if she’s just projecting her own sentiments onto him or if he’s truly saying it.

She limps her way over and methodically goes through field triage. Amell offers instructions and directions for anyone who wants to help, and the Iron Bull’s Chargers stand guard so that no Inquisition soldier can kill another Warden under Amell’s care.

She looks up from her work only once and glimpses Cullen Stanton Rutherford nervously pacing back and forth near the Chargers. The mere sight of him is enough to make Amell freeze in her movements. She heard that he was made the Commander of the Inquisition, but hearing about something and seeing the truth of it in real life were entirely different. His face brings up too many memories of the Circle — unwanted attention, the glimpse of a smile that was too soft for the life of a templar, the fear that the softness would be trained out of him, the fear that the training would be on her rather than anyone else — and Amell shudders.

He doesn’t look like he’s trying to stop the Chargers or her for that matter. But then, Cullen looks up to see the Warden healer. And he sees her.

Even from this distance, Amell can see the way his posture changes, the way his expression morph and his eyes wide, and the way that he stumbles back by several steps. Amell looks down at her hands, bloody from healing open wounds, and she thinks that she hasn’t changed much in terms of appearance. Her hair is still a dark black color, and her eyes are still a bright ice blue. There’s blood streaked across the bridge of her nose along with several other scratches and minor injuries sustained from her time in the dungeons. Other than that, she should still look the same. More tired, aching, weary, but still. The same.

Amell looks back down at her newest patient, trying to ignore the way her hands shake as she starts stitching together a wound manually. She sutures the wound while trying to ignore Cullen’s presence. She doesn’t look up again. At least, not until she hears a heaving, ripping sound in the air.

Amell looks up again in time to see reality bend inward on itself, and she can feel a great well of power tearing through the Veil. A rift forms over the fortress floor, and the Lady Inquisitor herself comes tumbling out. A few other companions follow her including one figure wearing Warden amor. It’s not Warden-Commander Clarel de Chanson; it’s some well-built blond man. The entire Inquisition goes into an uproar over the Inquisitor’s sudden appearance, but Amell ignores her.

She has lives to save.

She labors over their bodies, trying to stitch them back together. Amell knows that there are some wounds dealt on their minds that she cannot heal as easily as a laceration or a broken bone. Some are beyond saving, so these are the ones that she kills with a silent stroke of her finger down their throat and to the center of where their heart would be located. Magic follows the path she outlines down their throats and hearts to stop the erratic rhythms with a simple, painless kill. Another trick she learned from Enchanter Liawen.

As she works, she hears a woman clear her throat. The entire noise around Amell quiets almost immediately. Amell keeps working, but she doesn’t look up quite yet. “Friends, Wardens, countrymen,” she hears the same woman say. “We have been warned of the dangers of blood magic many times over in our history. I myself have had experience with blood mages and tragedy from an early age. Blessed Andraste herself warned us about blood magic in the Canticle of Transfigurations.”

A furious snarl threatens to make its way across Amell’s face, and it takes all of her strength to keep it restrained. She settles for an angry frown as she listens to Lady Inquisitor Trevelyan quote, “Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world or beyond.” The Inquisitor sighs after she says part of the canticle and continues, “But once again, we reap the bitter consequences of turning to blood magic and maleficarum.”

Anger makes Amell work with a bitter speed. Amell refuses to give the Lady Inquisitor any sort of acknowledge during this presumably grand speech. The Inquisitor’s voice is evenly accented in the same flat arches of the Free Marches, and there’s a poshness to her voice that clearly indicates that she was a noblewoman at some point. Amell makes a face and starts suturing another wound.

“Warden-Commander Clarel de Chanson broke the foundations of this fortress to take down that wretched man who calls himself Erimond. A valiant yet belated effort,” the Inquisitor says. Her voice rings out clear and loud across the fortress, and the structure of the walls helps her voice echo even more. A sneering tone curls into her words as she says, “Perhaps she was attempting to redeem herself despite poorly the attempt was executed. But my companions and I were caught in the blast and sent through a rift to the Fade. There, we saw the ghost of Divine Justinia herself, and I have reaffirmed myself to the will and decree of our blessed Andraste and the Maker.” She pauses to take a breath before murmuring, “The Champion of Kirkwall graciously sacrificed herself so that I could live on and carry out the divine will.”

Finally, Amell looks up, and her face contorts with all the rage that she cannot hold back. Clarel, dead? She mourns for the loss of her mentor and her friend, but she is also furious that Clarel died for someone like this monstrous excuse for an Inquisitor.

“Now, Wardens,” Inquisitor Trevelyan continues. “You may be wondering as to what your fate may be now. Warden-Commander Clarel is dead, and you are free from the maleficar’s influence.” She gestures over to her Warden companion, and Amell squints as she tries to search through her memory for his face. “Warden-Commander Theirin of Ferelden has survived our journey into the Fade. He would make a fine replacement for Warden-Commander Clarel considering his status as a fellow Commander of the Grey as well as his reputation and experience from the Fifth Blight and the Battle of Amaranthine. He can take over the Orlesian division of the Warden Order and help you recover from your losses here.”

He looks miserable. Absolutely, positively miserable. Perhaps more miserable than Amell herself, but it’s a surprise to see the famous Fereldan Commander of the Grey for the first time. He looks surprisingly like the portraits of King Cailan and King Maric that Amell’s seen in books within the Mage Tower library at Lake Calenhad. She supposes that it makes sense considering that he’s a king’s bastard and all, but she’s still surprised to see him.

The Inquisitor considers Alistair carefully before she resumes “Speaking of losses, I must discuss my very first point about blood magic.” She waves towards all of the Wardens and says, “I understand that the pull of blood magic is enticing, but your participation or your lack of dissent against it equals your damnation. Your vulnerability to Corypheus also poses a major risk for the people of Orlais as well as the people of Thedas.”

A sense of dread fills Amell’s heart and chokes her voice from her throat. Amell watches the Inquisitor as she proclaims, “Henceforth, the Grey Wardens shall be exiled from the nation of Orlais. Your departure from this nation is a necessary one and will be enforced not only by the Inquisition but by Orlais as well. Thank you for your service, Wardens, but you will not be needed anymore.”

An uproar explodes among them all: Inquisition and Grey Wardens alike. Amell stands there, unable to say a single word. She can’t tear her eyes away from Warden-Commander Theirin who protests loudly. She can’t make out what he’s saying, but she sees him reach out for Inquisitor Trevelyan’s shoulder. He doesn’t grab her though. Instead, he pulls back and draws himself up to his full height as he snarls out something angry and thorned.

Amell slowly kneels back down beside her patient. He’s too far gone to be conscious, but Amell has his lifeline firmly grabbed in her bloody hands. And she heals him.

This is the best that she can do. She cannot stop the Inquisitor, but she can do this one thing that violates her orders. She can, at the very least, snatch back every Warden life that Inquisitor Trevelyan ordered dead with her wounded, bloodied hands.

 

* * *

 

Inquisitor Trevelyan retires to her own tent for the night.

Good. Alistair thinks that he might throttle or murder the woman if he sees her again.

The anger still curls wild and thorned and furious deep in his chest, and no matter what he does, he can’t think of a way to get out of this. Inquisitor Trevelyan has both Orlais and Ferelden firmly grasped in her hands through her alliances with Empress Celene and Queen Anora. Alistair’s sure that Inquisitor Trevelyan has piles upon piles of blackmail piled up in some secret repository of hers that keeps both nations on _her_ leash.

He moves through the battlefield, and he notices the bodies freshly killed on the cobblestones. Some Inquisition soldiers are wiping the blood from the bodies off their swords, and he _knows._ Murder is never easy to hide, and this is a truth that cannot be hidden with the Chant of Light nor the Inquisitor’s own honey-tongued words.

But something surprises him. Beyond the Inquisition soldiers, he notices a few ragtag fighters wearing their own armor and sigils instead of the Inquisition’s symbol. A Qunari stands among them, a full foot above their height, and helps them keep guard. The Iron Bull, if Alistair remembers correctly. The Iron Bull and his Chargers.

The Chargers all guard a series of Warden survivors on meager cots and bedrolls made out of spare curtains and old clothes borrowed from some room in Adamant Fortress. All of them are in various states of recovery. One or two mages are beside some of the wounded, but compared to the number of people in recovery, Alistair can’t imagine how two mages alone managed to heal all of these people.

Then, he spots a trail of empty vials. Alistair nods to the Iron Bull who silently lets him pass. The Iron Bull’s lips are thinly pressed together into a line, and the look in his eyes are stony and impassive. Still, Iron Bull nods back. Alistair bends down to inspect one vial and glimpses the telltale glimmer of blue and silver stained across the rim of the vial. Lyrium.

The number of empty vials on this trail is alarming. No person should ever be able to drink that much lyrium and survive the night. Alistair slowly follows the trail. His only sources of light are the light from the twin moons in the dark night sky and the flickering light from the torches in the distance. As he walks, he marvels at the number of people saved.

The trail of vials abruptly stops by the figure of a woman bent over a body. Another pile of full lyrium vials glitter a bright blue beside her. Her hands are over the body, gently glowing a soft and diffusive light, and she sweeps the light down the body. Thanks to the light and Alistair’s own penchant for seeing relatively well in the dark, Alistair sees the way this woman’s hands are absolutely encrusted with so much blood.

The woman pays no attention to Alistair and continues her own work. When she’s satisfied, she reaches over to grab a wet rag and wipes off all the blood from her hands. They shake as she reaches for a vial of lyrium by her side, and she downs it like a shot of alcohol. She wipes her lips before she tosses up a soft magelight to float beside her. She claps her hands together before she gets up and glances over at Alistair. “Good evening, Warden-Commander Theirin,” she says softly.

Alistair looks at the Warden, and he… He doesn’t know what to say. He stands there, absolutely stricken, as he looks at what looks exactly like Hawke. Her eyes are lyrium blue, and her hair is dark as night. Sure, her hair is far longer than Hawke’s hair ever was, but there’s a few strands of hair that fall across her face almost exactly like Hawke’s. There’s even a streak of blood across the bridge of her nose just like Hawke, and her voice is distinctly Fereldan. However, one thing Alistair will say is that this Warden has more of a lithe beauty rather than the strong countenance of the Champion. He also can’t deny her loveliness despite all the dirt and grime stuck to her and her dulled Warden armor.

She cocks her head to the side and says, “My name is Lina Amell. Are you alright?”

Alistair clears his throat and tries to speak. His first couple of words are garbled, but he clears his throat again to say, “Uh, hullo? Yes, yes, I’m Alistair. Alistair Theirin. Warden-Commander Theirin. Oh, just call me Alistair, I don’t mind.” He gestures over to the unconscious Warden and awkwardly asks, “Uh, so you’re the one? The one doing all of this?”

Amell laughs and tucks a lock of long, tangled hair behind her ear. “Frankly, yes,” she says. “Some other survivors started helping towards the end.” She grimaces though and shakes her head. “I’m trying to get to as many as I possibly can, but at some point, I’ll run out of lyrium.”

“You’re not, uh, drinking too much?” Alistair asks. He waves a hand towards the trail of empty lyrium vials. “That’s how I found you actually. I just followed the trail.”

Amell shrugs, “Legally, I have surpassed the human capacity for lyrium which is incidentally lower than elves or dwarves.” She cranes her head to look at the trail and laughs, “If my calculations are correct, I’ve had three times the recommended amount. I’ve made my kidneys do worse though.”

Alistair gapes at her which only makes Amell laugh again. Maker, she even laughs like Hawke. It’s uncanny. Amell sighs and stretches her arms. “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you, Commander,” she says. “But I wish we could’ve met in better circumstances.” She looks so incredibly somber as she says it. Alistair can relate. He’s sure that he looks just as miserable and weary as Amell herself.

“You know,” she comments. “We could’ve met in Amaranthine. The Warden-Commander of Orlais at the time — Alisse Fontaine, not sure if you’ve met her — offered to send me to Amaranthine.”

Alistair scratches the back of his neck and admits, “Yeah, I said no to that. I wasn’t sure if the rest of Ferelden would really welcome more Orlesian Wardens, but you don’t seem Orlesian. in fact, you sound Fereldan.”

“I am, actually,” Amell says. “I lived in the Circle Tower by Lake Calenhad. There was an incident where my best friend turned out to be a blood mage and escaped. I had to pay some sort of consequence to make an example for other mages and apprentices. A Warden by the name of Duncan actually stepped in and tried to recruit me. He gave me the option to choose, and like a stubborn idiot, I refused. Didn’t stop me from ending up in the Wardens though. Perhaps it’s fate or the Maker’s idiot hand.”

Alistair blinks when he hears Duncan’s name. It’s been so long since he’s ever heard Duncan’s name again, and the familiar pang of grief in his heart takes him by surprise. But Amell’s story seems… Familiar. He searches through his memory for any mention of Amell’s name in conjunction with Duncan, and he remembers. Duncan told him the story of his time at the Mage Tower by the campfire. He mentioned a mage who refused, and Alistair remembers being so taken aback by that.

So, this is the mage that refused freedom for the sake of refusing. What a small world. And quite honestly, a choice like that takes balls. Alistair respects that.

“Are you alright?” Amell asks.

“I should be the one asking you that,” Alistair responds.

Amell takes a step forward, but she stumbles as she moves forward. She would’ve fallen on her face, but Alistair quickly steps forward to catch her. He braces himself against the impact and props her back on her feet. “Thanks,” she mutters. Alistair can feel the aftereffects of the lyrium burning hot underneath Amell’s skin. She glances up, and for a moment, Alistair thinks that her eyes are _too_ blue, and Alistair worries that she’s crossed the line.

Well, according to her, she surpassed the recommended limit long ago. But Alistair would rather not have this Warden die, especially in his arms. He’s had enough of Wardens dying.

“Can you put me down near the next body?” Amell asks.

Alistair stares at her like she’s crazy — and he might be inclined to believe so considering her lyrium intake — and says, “No, you need to rest. At this rate, you’re going to kill yourself.”

Amell narrows her eyes and snaps, “But we will save one more life. Next body please. We don’t have the time to waste. Do you want the Inquisitor to come down here and start killing the leftover Wardens herself? No, I’m not going to let that happen again. These were my brothers and sisters, people that I have worked with and laughed with over the past decade. I will not let them die, and if they die, I will not let them die alone.”

“I am your new Warden-Commander, and I say that you need rest,” Alistair bites back. He hates having to use authority, but truly, he thinks that she’ll kill herself with all of this healing. There’s no possible way that a single person could heal all of these people.

“Then, just one more person,” she pleads. “I’ve already drank the lyrium, and I need to get it out of my system.”

Alistair pinches his lips together. Damn, she has a point, but he really doesn’t want to let her do it. She’s done enough already. Alistair looks down at Amell’s bare hands. Her skin looks paper-thin, and there are numerous scars lacerating the skin along her wrists and arms. They look old, but they reek of blood magic. That raises his suspicions, but he thinks Amell means well. Besides, the only fresh blood she has on her are from her own patients.

WIth a heavy sigh, Alistair helps Amell limp over to a nearby Warden. She holds onto his hand with a careful grip and interlaces her fingers tightly with his to keep herself from falling. Amell exhales, and her shoulders visibly sink with relief. However, she studies the Warden with a careful eye. “This one won’t make it through the night,” she murmurs. “Too many wounds, not enough treatment, not soon enough.”

Alistair helps her kneel down beside him. She lays a hand on the Warden’s forehead. Amell shuts her eyes and allows a soft layer of frost to develop between her hand and the Warden’s forehead. It cools the feverish red rising up on the Warden’s cheeks, and Amell gets back up. “That’s all I can do for you,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry. In death, sacrifice, sister. Go to the Maker’s side or whichever god you believe in with peace and with honor.”

They move onto the next and then the next, and Amell repeats the same thing. But with every goodbye she whispers, the deeper her grief and her anger etches itself on her face. She truly does look like Hawke in that moment, but when her eyes meet Alistair’s, Alistair sees that the look in her eyes are different. There’s still a spark left in her instead of Hawke who had snuffed-out eyes that were barely alive.

Finally, they find a Warden who can be saved. Amell weaves magic over the Warden’s body, and her fingers move deftly over the thread of mana. The warp and weft of the magic fits perfectly over the Warden’s wounds and seals them up. “No sutures necessary for this one,” Amell says to herself. “Healing spells for the deeper wounds, one nick to your abdominal muscles. Oh, you’re lucky that didn’t go any deeper. Stitching the muscles back together, no vital organs hit, and then, we’ve got the dermis closing here. I won’t be able to heal the upper layers of your skin, you know. But those will heal faster and quietly on their own. Oh no, no, don’t sit up now. Take it in. Easy there. Breathe. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be alive.”

Amell hauls herself up when she’s done, and she looks at the blood on her hands. She laughs suddenly and says, “My mentor once told me that I would always have the bloodiest hands.”

“Why is that?” Alistair asks.

She glances up and gives him a bittersweet smile, laced with so much melancholy. Alistair can relate. Painfully so. “Because I am a healer,” she says simply. “A teacher of mine once told me that you had to probe the wound to know how deep it goes, and you had to know how the blood flows in a person’s body to know where the issues lie. You cannot heal pain by hiding it, so we have to accept the blood to make things better.” She shakes her head and sighs, “They say warriors have the bloodiest job. They take their swords and shields and axes and maces, and they deal out wounds and punishments that rain blood down on the battlefield. But no one ever talks about how to live on after a war. No one talks about the healing that must happen after battle. I am the one responsible for stitching together the wounds that other people cause, and _that_ is the bloodiest job.”

Alistair stares at her before he laughs wryly as well. “You’re right,” he says. “It’s a lot easier to kill someone than it is to heal them, I’d expect. Anyone can become a warrior or at the very least, kill someone. Just pick up a sword and swing it around. I can’t imagine how you’d heal someone.”

“Yes, the healing takes time and years of practice,” Amell says. “A warrior’s job isn’t easy, and it’s certainly bloody.” She shrugs and wiggles her fingers. “But it’s a job that I have to do.”

She wipes her hand across her face absently and grimaces when she realizes she’s just made the streak of blood across her nose even bolder. “Bad habit of mine,” she admits. “Completely unhygienic too.” Amell scrubs at her nose with her rag, but it’s to no avail.

Alistair gestures a little bit to the left and says, “A little more that way.” Amell tries to follow his motions but goes too far left. “Here, let me,” Alistair says and moves over to wipe the blood off her face. Amell blinks at him while Alistair cleans the blood off her nose, and he still can’t shake the uncanny similarity to Hawke in her gaze.

Their eyes meet for too long, and then, Amell’s cheeks flush a light pink. Alistair tears his own gaze away, and he finds that his cheeks feel a bit too hot as well. He’s not quite sure what to do now. There was never any training or some kind of book to describe what to do after staring at a pretty girl for too long. Alistair supposes that he could run away without another word, but that would seem even more impolite than just continuing to stare. He steps back and passes the rag back. They twiddle their thumbs in an awkward silence, but Alistair still rolls around one more question in his mind. He wonders if he should ask, but finally, he just blurts out, “Sorry, but are you… Are you related or connected with the Champion of Kirkwall?” He makes horizontal motions with his hands in hopes of getting the meaning across more correctly. Judging from Amell's blank expression, he doesn't think it worked.

Amell’s cheeks are still glazed a light pink, but she cocks her head and considers the question. “The Champion of Kirkwall? Hawke, right? I heard she was Fereldan and Free Marcher. I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but my mother was a noble from the Free Marches. Kirkwall, I think. So, perhaps, but I would have to check the records myself.”

Alistair doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or relieved, but in the end, he can’t project Hawke onto some new Warden that he just met. He sighs, and Amell studies him with a critical look in her eye. “Thoughts on this new exile business?” she asks. Her tone is deceptively light, but Alistair can see the keen glint in her bright eyes.

“I don’t like it at all,” Alistair admits. “Yes, what that blasted idiot, Erimond, was doing was so incredibly wrong. Nothing about it was necessary. Having to relieve yourself after an eight-hour ride is necessary. But there's no excuse for summoning demons especially for a false Calling.” Alistair shakes his head and says bitterly, “But, exiling the Wardens shouldn’t be the immediate answer to the situation.” His expression darkens. “Loghain Mac Tir tried to ban and exterminate the Wardens from Ferelden even though there was a Blight. Look what happened there. Without Mahari—” His voice cracks there, and Alistair has to clear his throat. “Without the Hero of Ferelden, the Blight wouldn’t have ended. Denerim would have crumbled and broken down, and the darkspawn would move on past the borders and to the rest of Thedas.”

Amell glances behind Alistair to where the Iron Bull and his Chargers stand. Without breaking her gaze from there, she murmurs, “Yes, I know. We were stuck by the Ferelden border, trying to gain access and offer help during the Blight. It seems like it was only a day ago, but I was there, barred from entering my own country again.” Her lips twist into a wry smile. “Well, that’s not entirely true. As a Fereldan citizen, I could’ve entered into the country, but then they would have arrested and executed me for being a Grey Warden.”

“Well, we’re illegal again,” Alistair tries.

Amell laughs — a soft, genuine laugh that cracks some of the weariness off her face — and says, “Back to wandering for us. But for what it’s worth, I’d rather be by your side than _hers.”_

She does not have to clarify for Alistair to know _“her”_ means. Inquisitor Trevelyan has enough weight and force to her that immediately makes her knowable within the span of a single sentence without having to invoke her name.

That sobers Alistair’s countenance, and he turns back to look into the distance. The Iron Bull and the Chargers still stand guard, but beyond them, the Inquisition’s flag flies high in the sky. He can’t make it out exactly within the dark blanket of night, but he can still hear the sound of the fabric flapping in the soft breeze. Inquisition forces move, slowly patching over their wounds from the war they just lived through, and the bitterness grows heavier on Alistair’s tongue.

Back to exile again.

It almost feels like the Fifth Blight all over again, but this time, they all bend under the sheer force of Inquisitor Trevelyan’s will.

 

* * *

 

“So, you’re the Warden who blocked my soldiers from following their orders,” a voice says. Amell doesn’t look up from the next patient that she’s treating. She doesn’t have the time to waste. She still has three vials of lyrium left; she can heal at least five more people by the end of the night. Warden-Commander Theirin isn’t there to stop her again, and Amell tighens her shaking hand into a fist. One more life saved. If the price is high, then so be it.

A booted foot in front of Amell crushes one of the empty lyrium vials when Amell doesn’t respond, and finally, Amell looks up.

There’s a woman standing in front of her with rich ginger hair. Her eyes are a clear, sharp blue that looks almost ice. Amell knows that her own eyes are blue as well, but the eyes set in this woman’s face are so clear and pale that they look terrifying when combined with her regal attitude. Something makes the woman flinch when she sees Amell’s face. Amell can’t think of any reason why though. Maybe there’s another streak of blood dried down on her nose. Perhaps it’s the brightness of her eyes. That puts some people off sometimes.

Amell sighs and leans back from the body, balancing on the balls of her feet. The woman yanks back any notion of surprise back from her expression. Then, she checks a note in her hand and says, “Warden Lina Amell of Ferelden, most recently of Orlais and the Free Marches.” Her lips curl when she says, “A _mage.”_

Amell studies the woman. She’s pretty enough: the same grace and balance as expected from any noblewoman and an expression that is smooth and flat as glass. But more importantly, Amell notes the flaming sword emblazoned on her breastplate. A Sword of Mercy plunging into a flaming eye. A symbol of the Inquisition. Amell’s gaze drifts from the woman’s breastplate to the woman’s left hand. It gently sputters out a dim, green light, but Amell senses it as a wild vortex that feels almost like a hole in the Veil around it. There’s only one person that this could be.

“And you’re Trevelyan,” Amell evenly replies.

Wrong thing to say. Trevelyan’s lips twist as she says in a clipped tone, “You may call me Inquisitor, Herald, or your Worship.”

“Ah, so you’re one of those types of people, _your Worship,”_ Amell mutters. The rumors seem to be true so far. Some call the Inquisitor a walking storm, and Amell thinks that they may be right. She stands up and doesn’t bother to clean the blood off of her hands. “Yes, I healed my fellow brothers and sisters, and I saved them from senseless murder,” she says defiantly.

“Ironic, considering how they are senseless murderers themselves,” Trevelyan says in a deceptively light tone.

“Not all of them were involved with Erimond’s plans, Inquisitor,” Amell retorts.

Trevelyan spreads her hands and asks, “Then what roles did they play in this? Why did they not stop the madness from ensuing? What, may I ask, was _your_ role in this situation, Warden Amell?”

Amell narrows her eyes as she spits out, “I was kept in the dungeons as one of Erimond’s blood sources, _your Worship._ Tortured, bled, and beaten for my refusal to participate. And the others? You do not know the burden of the Wardens, Inquisitor, not like we do.”

Somehow, Trevelyan’s eyes grow colder and colder until their gaze pins through Amell sharper than a knife. “Do not underestimate my knowledge, Warden,” she sneers. “I know about the Calling and the nature of the Archdemon.” She takes another step forward and crushes yet another empty vial. The sound of glass grinding down to dust grates against Amell’s ear, and Amell marshals all of her fury together.

“But you do not _know_ it like we do,” Amell says, mimicking the curling tone of arrogance lacing through Trevelyan’s voice. “Tell me, _Inquisitor,_ have you ever felt the Calling? Have you ever been Tainted?” She shakes her head; she doesn’t need an answer. “You do not know what the Calling truly is until you have felt the screech of the song and the poison of the Taint and the chanting of the darkspawn in your dreams and in your blood,” she hisses.

“Fine,” Trevelyan snaps back. Amell can see Trevelyan’s composure wavering around the edges of her expression before she snaps it together as cleanly as a mask. “I cannot claim to understand you like your fellow Wardens can, but we must admit that the Wardens are no longer essential to Thedas like they were several years ago,” Trevelyan says. “The Blight is over, and we have a new threat to deal with. A threat that you are also part of.”

“Do not forget that the Wardens were the ones to kill the Archdemons of the Blights,” Amell warns. “Do not forget that we are still the ones laboring in the Deep Roads to keep your lands safe and sound. You’re from Ostwick, right? I spent five years in the Deep Roads underneath the Free Marches, underneath Ostwick and Kirkwall and Starkhaven, to defend people like _you.”_

Amell wonders if she would’ve gone to the Free Marches if she knew that she was protecting someone like Trevelyan. A dark, resentful part of Amell’s heart wants to say no, but she knows that duty comes above all for a Warden. A pity and a shame.

Trevelyan and Amell study each other in the silence with a dangerous look tainting their faces. Amell doesn’t bother to hide her blatant revulsion, and Trevelyan follows suit with a barely-hidden look of patronizing arrogance draped around her.

“I see why you stopped my soldiers then,” Trevelyan finally says.

Amell considers the sentence. Likely, she’s going to be led into some verbal trap. “Why?” she asks.

“You are stubborn,” Trevelyan says. “Foolish and blinded by your thoughts and opinions of the world around you.”

Amell barks out a heartless laugh. “You are describing yourself, Lady Inquisitor,” she says without regret. “I stopped them because it is a fundamental war crime. Intentionally killing prisoners is considered a war crime by your precious Chantry and by Val Royeaux. You violate the principles of distinction and proportionality by ordering your forces to murder my people.”

Trevelyan seems a touch off kilter by Amell’s comment, and Amell pounces on it. “Yes, Inquisitor,” she drawls. “I used to spend my days and nights in Circle libraries. I’ve read through war conventions drafted by the Chantry, but I don’t need to know that to have a conscience or a set of morals.”

“Then, you have not read through the conventions properly,” Trevelyan evenly replies. “We are on an Exalted March, and the Chantry has sanctioned my actions.”

“Truly? Even when your organization was declared as heretical since the explosion of the Chantry?” Amell snorts. She points her bloody finger at Trevelyan and says, “And being on an Exalted March means you should be on your guard, even more so. Your Maker must be watching down upon you and witnessing the atrocities that you are crafting. Fine, go on your Exalted March. I will leave Orlais with the rest of the Wardens.”

She gives Trevelyan one last withering look before she murmurs, “I only hope that you leave behind enough pieces for the rest of us to live on when you break the world under your heel.”

 

* * *

 

They start leaving Orlais immediately.

When they do not move fast enough, the Inquisitor sends some of her forces to hurry them along. Amell takes up a position with her friends from Orlais: Leonie, Elyon, and the Kaders. Nika and Eram are heavily scarred now, but Amell would rather have them alive and scarred rather than dead.

Leaving Orlais also means leaving the Inquisitor’s presence temporarily. Good. Amell can’t stand the woman.

Their new Warden-Commander is at the very front, leading the vanguard forces out of Orlais. They’re heading towards Ferelden, and it reminds Amell about her first few days as a Warden. They even follow the same path: first to Jader and then to the border.

At night, when they camp, they gather into small pockets that huddle together for warmth and for some semblance of comfort. When Amell looks out at her fellow Wardens, she sees a kind of emptiness or some kind of trauma shattering their faces and haunting their eyes. Amell doesn’t know how many horrors they’ve seen, how many friends they’ve lost, how many Wardens they’ve seen torn apart by demons. She’s thankful for her time in the dungeons. At least that meant she wouldn’t become an abomination with the blood of her friends. Her scars along her forearms from Erimond’s experiments were a small price to pay for something like that.

And at night, the Warden-Commander himself always manages to find a way to wander back to her tent where she has her work station set up. Amell’s in the middle of tearing up some fabric for new bandages when she hears the telltale steps. Without looking up, she says, “Don’t you have some Commander business to do?”

Alistair shifts his feet and asks, “Do you want me to leave?”

Now, Amell looks up to see Alistair holding two bowls of hot stew in his hands. She gives him a gentle smile and admits, “No, I didn’t mean it like that. Stay.” She considers her words and tacks on, “If you want to.”

Privately, she hopes he does. She knows that she’s always appreciated a pretty face, and Warden-Commander Theirin has both a pretty face and a kind soul. Something that is sorely lacking in people nowadays. It’s hard to see the kindness in people most of the time, but Warden-Commander Theirin is beaming with it. Amell doesn’t understand how a single man could have so much goodness in him, but she likes it. She likes it more than she could possibly allow herself. But she wants to. She truly does.

Alistair takes a seat beside Amell and passes her the wooden bowl. There’s already a spoon inside, and she gratefully takes it. It’s a grey, almost tasteless stew, but food is food. She takes a few bites as Alistair asks, “Do you need any help?”

Amell nods and swallows her food. “You can grind some elfroot,” she says. She gestures over to her small trunk outside her tent and says, “There’s a mortar and pestle over there, and the piles of elfroot are over there.”

Alistair gets up to rummage through the trunk. Amell doesn't pay much attention to him as she continues her own work, but she looks up when Alistair asks, "What's this?" He has a small pouch dangling in his hand and in the other, he has an old hawk feather, a woven charm, and a small crystal. Amell's breath catches in her throat when she looks at them, and she silently thanks the Maker that Erimond did not touch this. She's held onto those small treasures for years and years, and the sentiment clinging to them still hasn't faded. One from Anders, one from Enchanter Liawen, one from Enchanter Wynne. Looking at them sends a sharp pang of grief through her heart as she realizes that all three are now dead. One in the wreckage of Kirkwall, one in the broken battlefields of Ostagar, and one now peacefully among the spirits of the dead.

Alistair hurries to put the items back into the pouch, and he fumbles with the strap. He places each item in with a careful kind of reverence though, and Amell is grateful for that. "Sorry about that," he mumbles.

Amell shakes her head. "No, I was just surprised to see that they survived the whole incident at Adamant," she murmurs. "Wonders will never cease. They were all gifts from old friends given long, long ago. A decade or more."

Alistair's eyes widen, and he tucks the pouch away. "Again, I'm really sorry about disturbing them and touching them," he says. Amell waves him off and tries to offer up a reassuring smile instead. He finally finds the mortar and pestle, and then, he drags the materials beside Amell and starts getting to work. His stew starts to get cold and forgotten beside him, so Amell leans over to warm it back up with a touch of magic. He flashes her a quick grin as a thank you and shovels in a few bites. Then, he gets to work. He makes quick work of the elfroot and grinds it quickly once he gets the hang of the pestle.

“Interesting stew we have here,” Amell murmurs.

“Ooh, that?” Alistair says with a cheeky grin. “That’s a traditional Fereldan lamb and pea stew. Do you like it? I made it.”

Amell’s expression freezes as she searches for something kind to say about it. Lamb? First off, where did the Warden-Commander manage to get _lamb_ on their long trek, and secondly, why was the lamb so strangely textured?

Her silence is enough of an answer, and Alistair snorts, “They didn’t make lamb and pea stew for you in Orlais? What about the Free Marches? Maybe the Mage Tower?”

“We had simple food,” Amell says. “Whole grain bread, vegetables, deep mushrooms sometimes on expeditions underground. No stews like… Like this.”

“And you call yourself Fereldan,” Alistair laughs. Amell slaps him playfully on the shoulder, but he cries back, “You’ve eaten Orlesian style food for too long! Food shouldn’t be frilly and pretentious like that!” He leans in closer to Amell and gives her a sly grin as he says, “Now here in Ferelden, we do things right. We take our ingredients, throw them into the largest pot we can find, and cook them for as long as possible until everything is a uniform grey color. As soon as it looks completely bland and unappetizing, that's when I know it's done.”

“That’s not true,” Amell manages to get out mid-giggle.

Alistair waggles his eyebrows and shakes his spoon at her. “You need to eat in more Fereldan inns,” he snorts.

They settle down into a comfortable kind of silence, punctuated only by their work and a few bites of stew here and there. Amell is in a decidedly better mood; Alistair always manages to have that kind of effect on her.

“So,” Alistair suddenly says in the middle of his work. “Thoughts on going back to Ferelden?”

Amell swallows some of the last bits of her stew before she asks, “Why are you asking me this?”

“I value your opinion,” Alistair replies frankly.

The honest sentiment in his voice makes Amell blink and blush a little bit. Her new Warden-Commander certainly had a way of making her feel like this more than her fair share of her times. She clears her throat and tries to regain her composure as she says, “Well, it would be nice to come home. I don’t think I’ve been back in Ferelden since the Fifth Blight.”

“That was years ago,” Alistair says.

“It was,” Amell muses. “I can barely remember it, but to be entirely fair, most of my life was confined to the Circle and not the outdoors.”

She can’t remember much of the world beyond the Tower. Despite being from the Free Marches, she moved to Ferelden when she was little. Most of her childhood memories were of Enchanter Liawen and shenanigans with her friends like Jowan. There was one time that Jowan set a corner of a bookshelf on fire in the library, and there was one memory where First Enchanter Irving taught her himself for the first time in the upper floors of the Tower. So many individual memories stacked up in her mind to comprise her early life, but so little of them were of anything beside the Tower. That realization stings more than Amell realizes.

“I saw Denerim for the first time when we came to Warden Mahariel’s funeral,” she says. She laughs a little bit, but it is a dry, self-deprecating one that barely has a touch of mirth to it. “Apparently, I was there for a brief time when I was being transported to the Fereldan Circle from the Free Marches, but I was too young to truly remember it. I’ve never seen the Bannorn, I’ve never seen Lake Calenhad beyond my window in the Tower, and I’ve never seen the Korcari Wilds. There’s so much of my home that I’ve never seen before. One of my mentors, Enchanter Liawen Mahariel, used to live among the Dalish before she was captured and taken to the Circle. She used to tell me stories about the things she used to do and see. That was my only access to the outside world before I became a Warden.”

Alistair's breath hitches when he hears the name "Mahariel" but he tries to hide it as best as he can. “You lived in the Tower by Lake Calenhad, right?” Alistair asks. He dumps out ground elfroot into a different box and says, “I visited it once with the Hero of Ferelden to recruit some forces to fight the Blight.” He snorts. Absolutely endearing in Amell’s opinion. He looks up with a twinkle in his eye as he says, “Do you ever wonder why the mages built their tower at Lake Calenhad? Do they have an aversion to practicality or something?”

Oh, that makes Amell snort. She likes Alistair, awkward wit and all. “Ha, I wondered the same thing,” she chuckles. She gazes into the distance as she reminisces about her past. “But they like keeping you isolated. No other way out except by boat, and it’s virtually impossible to leave unless you swim,” she says absently. “None of us really knew how to swim. One guy tried to escape by constantly casting ice magic across the water and running across it. Ran out of magic halfway through, I think.”

Amell pauses. “But there was one mage that escaped,” she says ever so slowly. “I don’t know where he is in the world anymore. Maybe he’s dead, maybe he’s alive, I don’t know.”

She hopes Jowan is alive. Truly, she does.

Alistair taps her on her shoulder, and Amell jolts. She looks over at his earnest face as he says, “I’ll take you to all the places in Ferelden that you’ve never seen before. Promise.”

“Are you sure about that?” Amell asks doubtfully. He’s a Warden-Commander,a veteran of the Fifth Blight, and a descendant of the Theirin line. She doesn’t know why he’s sitting here beside her — nothing more than a healer — and promising her these things.

“Yes. I promise,” Alistair says with a firm nod. He reaches out to squeeze Amell’s hand. “I spent a decent amount of time traveling, and I’ve been to nearly every corner of Ferelden. We’ll go to every one and see what the world has to offer.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Amell tells Alistair with as much honesty as she can pour into the words.

She reciprocates by squeezing Alistair’s hand come before she sets aside her bandages and starts shifting through the elfroot that Alistair ground up. This will likely be used for poultices, so she rifles through her pack for some powdered crystal grace and embrium to add to the mix.

As she works, she suddenly asks, “Are you sure that we’d be allowed to stay in Ferelden?”

She’s seen what happened the last time. Barred at the border, ostracized from society, left to scrounging out a survival in the Deep Roads. She knows very well what could happen to them now.

“Vigil’s Keep is now a Warden stronghold, and Queen Anora should not forget that it was the Grey Wardens who freed her and saved her country,” Alistair says. Something in his eyes makes Amell’s suspicions rise though.

“Do you approve of Queen Anora?” she asks next.

Alistair stiffens at the mention of Her Majesty’s name. _Bingo,_ Amell thinks.

Alistair shifts beside her and pounds the next elfroot stalk with far more force than necessary. “She… I can’t deny that she’s done good work, and Mahariel… Mahariel thought I would be better off among the Wardens rather than on the throne,” he says, punctuating the spaces in his sentences with the pestle. He does laugh quietly when he says, “Gotta admit that she was right. Spending every single day trapped in a room and sitting on a big chair with a heavy metal hat doesn’t sound like fun, and I wouldn’t know a single thing about economics or diplomacy.” He sighs. “So, yes, Queen Anora is doing well in that regard. She’s a good woman too. Kind, cares about her people, can drink more whiskey than I can in a night, a good friend. I just can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if _I_ were king, you know?”

“I know,” Amell quietly murmurs. This is one more thing that she is so intimately familiar with. All the “what ifs” in the world were so easy to accrue. What if she never was a mage? What if she chose a different school of magic to study? What if she didn’t help Jowan escape? All of these paths and choices that she made in her life all pulled her to here, and in spite of her relative successes in her life, she still can’t quite put it into words exactly.

“It’s the constant sense of wondering,” she finally says. “Wondering about the what ifs that really drive us crazy in the end. I wonder what would’ve happened if I accepted Duncan’s offer from the very beginning.” She starts mixing the poultice thoroughly as she theorizes, “I would have gone to Ostagar, and the Hero of Ferelden would’ve died in the Brecilian Forest from the Taint. I wonder if I would’ve died in that battle or if I would’ve survived Ostagar. I wonder if I could have done what the Hero of Ferelden did. I wonder if I could have been a hero.” Amell can’t help the bubble of mirthless, bitter laughter that bubbles up her throat though. “Look at me. I’m a healer. I’m no warrior. I couldn’t have killed the Archdemon.”

“But you could’ve healed us,” Alistair points out. “For what it’s worth, you’re powerful in your own right too.”

In the dim light of the night, his eyes look like they’re shining; they refract the light almost in an elven way. Amell holds her breath when she looks at his sincerity. She dips her head and leans in closer to whisper, “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

The Frostbacks loom in the distance. Alistair glances down at his map in the dim, flickering light of his lantern and checks their location. They just left Lydes. Now, they just need to pass by Halamshiral before they reach Jader and the edge of the Ferelden border. He rubs his eyes and lets out a soft groan before he pushes his map aside.

He stands up and shoulders his way out of his tent. The night is still cold, and it’s already past midnight. Yet, there are still a number of Wardens wandering outside their tents. Every now and then, a scream splits through the air from some poor Warden’s tent. Adamant is far, far behind, but for some Wardens, Adamant still remains fresh in their minds.

Alistair folds his arms as he surveys the rows of tents, and he wonders how he’s going to herd them all into Ferelden safe and sound. He doesn’t even know if Anora will let them stay. He frowns and runs a hand through his hair. He squints at the figures wandering in the dark and thinks he recognizes one of them.

He takes a few steps forward and cranes his head to get a better glimpse. The Warden has long, dark hair pulled back into a simple, loose plait. A lot of Wardens do, but this Warden stops by every tent to check in on the occupants. Only one Warden does this routinely. A small smile spreads across Alistair’s face before he realizes it.

Lina Amell.

She glances up from her work, and even from this distance, Alistair can see the smile on her face too. Her likeness to Hawke fades once the signature streak of red is off her face, and now, she looks luminous under the light of the moon. She tucks some strands of hair behind her hair and asks, “Why aren’t you asleep, Warden-Commander Theirin?”

Alistair flushes and says, “You don’t have to call me that. Never liked the title much. You can just call me Alistair in private.”

Maker, why did he add “in private” to the end? It made him sound too… Too boyish, too awkward, too strange.

Amell only laughs softly and says, “Alistair then. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Alistair counters. Amell only raises an eyebrow as she waits for a better answer. “Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to see you?” he tries next.

“No,” she says, but he can see the laugh lines around her eyes.

“Fine, tough crowd, huh?” he says as he nudges Amell’s shoulder. He starts strolling down the rows of tents, and Amell follows after him. “Well, I just couldn’t fall asleep,” he tells her. “Too many thoughts about what’s going to happen next, where we’re headed next. And too many dreams.” He lapses into a soft silence, but it doesn’t feel as awkward with Amell by his side. “I can’t forget the sensation of the Calling,” he admits to her.

Amell looks over at him, and a melancholy expression slowly starts creeping over her face. “Same here,” she tells him. “It was… Unsettling.” She nods towards some of the other tents. “That’s one of the reasons why I try to check in on the others so much. Wounds of the body are easy to heal. Wounds of the mind aren’t.”

Alistair doesn’t miss the way Amell’s face clouds over. He can’t imagine what she’s gone through herself, and yet, here she is, comforting others and healing their wounds. He knows that she has the capability of healing over every wound and scratch on her body, but she never uses her magic on herself. She just ties on another bandage plastered with a poultice on her arms with her teeth and carries. “You were there for most of it, right?” he asks.

“In the dungeons, yes,” Amell says. Her eyes grow distant, but she continues, “After I made my opinion loudly and vocally known, Erimond had me chained up in the dungeons as part of his own personal blood supply.” She trails off and rubs at her foreheads with her thumb. “What about you?” she asks abruptly. “I thought you were far away, maybe somewhere in the Deep Roads or at Weisshaupt. All the Wardens are going silent nowadays.”

She’s not wrong. Even Alistair hadn’t heard of anything from Weisshaupt and he was the Commander of the Grey in Ferelden. He’s beginning to think that the title doesn’t mean much anymore. He sighs, “I was in Ferelden, searching for the source of a strange call. It felt like another Blight was starting up, but I hadn’t heard of any notice of a new archdemon from Weisshaupt or other Wardens. Then, one of your Wardens found us. Stroud, I think his name was.”

“Oh, good. He made it,” Amell exhales with relief.

“What happened?” Alistair inquires.

Amell runs the tip of her tongue over her dry, cracked lips as she considers his question. She keeps rubbing her thumb over the knife scars dotting her arms, and Alistair instinctively reaches out to hold her hand. She glances up at him, and he blinks at his own audacity. However, her expression softens, and she interlaces her fingers with his own. “Stroud was also one of the dissenters,” she finally answers. “I was a mage, so my blood was more useful to Erimond. But the others? Not quite as useful. They were to be sacrificed, so I tried to buy some time for them. There was a big fight, and I managed to get Stroud out. I asked him to find Warden-Commander Theirin, and here we are now. What happened to him?”

Amell’s hand is too cold, and Alistair rubs his thumb over the back of her hand in a feeble attempt to warm it up. Amell’s lips twitch upward, and a small spark dances from her fingertips over Alistair’s hand. Her hand slowly warms up, and she winks at Alistair. There’s still a bit of expectant hope in her face when Alistair looks at her, and it makes his next sentence even harder to say.

“Stroud got us to Crestwood to meet with Hawke, but then,” he murmurs. “When we were supposed to meet with the Inquisitor, she accidentally alerted our location to the other Wardens patrolling in the area. Stroud decided to buy us time and said that he was long due for his own Calling.”

Amell stops in her tracks and breathes out, “No… That absolute _witch_ of a woman, I can’t believe—”

“I’m sorry,” Alistair says in the barest of breaths. He reaches out to hold Amell’s other hand, and they stand there in the darkness linked together.

“I shouldn’t have let him go alone. I should’ve been stronger and fought to escape with him,” Amell says in a wavering voice. She shakes her head and mutters bitterly, “It seems to be a terrible habit of mine, buying time.” She looks up at Alistair. “Remember that mage I told you about? The only one to truly escape from the Tower at Lake Calenhad during my time there?”

Alistair nods, and Amell whispers, “His name was Jowan. He was my best friend. I tried to buy him time and excuses to help him escape. It’s one of the reasons why I’m here now.” She tilts her head up towards the sky and gazes at the twin moons before she murmurs, “And here we are, watching the world come under the heel of a woman who is making herself into a god.”

Alistair’s face sobers, and he squeezes Amell’s hands in what he hopes to be a comforting gesture. “But we’ll survive it,” he says. “We’ve survived worse before.”

“Was the Blight really worse than this?” Amell asks. “At least we had a hero that cared about the people she was protecting.”

That sentence feels like a sucker-punch to Alistair’s stomach. A decade of grief has not dulled the sharp absence that Mahariel left behind, and it hurts him to see what has happened to the country she paid her life to save. She bought time for all of them, and now, it hurts him to look at the way they are all squandering it.

Amell is right; Trevelyan has marshaled the Chantry into something devastating. The woman has forged the Chantry into a sharp sword that cut deep into Thedas and left rivers of blood as red as corrupted lyrium in its wake.

“We’ll survive it,” he repeats even more fervently. “I’ve had enough of other people buying time and sacrificing themselves. We’ll survive this, and we’ll make the world better.”

“Healing another wound,” Amell agrees. “A wound is a wound no matter what it may be on.” Her lips crack into a small smile. “And I would be happy to do it by your side.”

The honesty in her voice shocks him, and Alistair stares at Amell. A soft, pink blush that’s barely visible in the shadows scatters over her face, and she stammers, “W-what? I’m just telling the truth. Oh, come on, you always have so much to say. Don’t be quiet now. It feels embarrassing.”

Alistair sheepishly ducks his head. Should he do something more? What would someone in his situation do? He throws caution to the wind and uses his grip on Amell’s hands to tug her into an embrace. She yelps with the sudden motion of it, but she soon relaxes in his arms.

“This isn’t what I was expecting when I was going out on my rounds tonight,” she admits. Her voice is muffled as she curls in closer to Alistair, but she continues, “Surprising, really. A pleasant surprise, mind you. But surprising.”

“I aim to be unique,” Alistair tries.

That earns him a soft laugh from Amell. She cranes her head up and whispers, “Would you mind if I kissed you right now?”

No, Alistair would not mind at all.

And he is pleasantly surprised to find out that Lina Amell is an _excellent_ kisser.

 

* * *

 

Lydes and Halamshiral fade behind the Wardens on their exodus, and soon, Jader comes up ahead. The days of travel drip by, and Amell spends most of those days by Alistair’s side.

Oh, she does her own work as a healer for most of the days. She doesn’t understand how, among all of the Wardens gathered together, there’s not a _single_ mage capable of healing properly. Most have some sense on how to cast a barrier spell, but the vast majority of them were trained in the arts of fire and ice. She supposes that makes sense. They are all mages forged for battle, but fire does not cure a wound.

She has to rely on herbs and poultices far more than she would prefer, and she makes makeshift alchemy tables out of campfires, borrowed pots, and a liberal sprinkling of elfroot. Most of the lyrium potions get funneled back to her since she’s the only main healer out of them all. After that, the mages with the most talents in spirit magic get the next rations. None of them truly studied creation magic, but Amell makes do with the people and the resources that she has.

But in her free time, she spends it almost all with Alistair. Nika and Elyon make fun of her for it. Leonie secretly thinks it’s exceptionally cute — a sentiment that embarrasses Amell thoroughly — and Eram thinks that it’s a waste of time. But they all support her nonetheless.

She slips into Alistair’s tent at sundown, just after dinner. Her steps are near silent, but she doesn’t doubt that Alistair’s already noticed. He doesn’t look up though. He keeps his eyes set on a paper that he clutches in his hands. “What are you reading?” Amell murmurs as she circles around Alistair.

Alistair reaches out to twine his fingers with Amell’s and sighs, “A letter from Anora. She’s not happy about me bringing a battalion of Wardens back to Vigil’s Keep.”

Alistair sinks down on his bedroll, and Amell takes a seat beside him. “Does she know that we’re not a full battalion?” she tries. “We’re only about 300 people, and it’s been hard for me to keep them alive on the way to Ferelden. We went from a full regiment of Wardens to barely a battalion. Our companies have diminished, our platoons are weakened, and it’s only a miracle that my squad survived Adamant safe and sound.”

It’s true, and it is a miracle that she thanks the absent Maker for every day.

“I know, but we have around a company’s worth of Wardens in Ferelden with most of them being based in Vigil’s Keep,” Alistair says with another tired sigh. He rubs his eyes with his other hand, still holding onto the letter. Amell glimpses a flourish on the paper of what can only be the queen’s signature. No stamp, no mark. A handwritten letter. They must be on friendly or close terms for the queen to write a letter personally.

Alistair tosses the letter aside and says, “I only have resources for that company alone. I can’t add 300 people to a keep that’s equipped only for 60. We don’t have the rations, the supplies, anything. At this rate, only Anora or the Inquisitor have the resources and the gold and the proximity to offer us aid.”

“And we already know that _her Worship_ won’t help us at all,” Amell says in a scathing tone.

“That’s true, and Anora’s not bad,” Alistair says. He absently tucks a lock of Amell’s hair back as he speaks. It makes Amell’s heart thrill a little bit, and she wonders if he’s aware of what he makes her feel. Alistair soldiers on, completely unaware of the flush creeping down Amell’s neck, and he says, “She handles economics and politics well, and she has a soft spot for the Wardens for what we did a decade ago. But even that won’t stop her from refusing to give us resources for 300 more people. I don’t think I can scrape out enough gold from Amaranthine’s coffers to pay for anything beyond a week or so.”

The truth sobers Amell enough, and she asks, “Then, where will they go?”

Alistair shuts his eyes as he says, “I don’t know.” He exhales and in a softer voice, he repeats, “I don’t know.”

Amell considers Alistair: his countenance, his side-profile, the way his brow furrows as he mires himself deep in thought. He still has laugh lines around his eyes, ingrained after what must have been years of laughing, but he is not laughing now.

Amell’s never slept with him. Well, not in that sense. They’ve fallen asleep in the middle of their work, leaning against each other, but never like _that._ But Amell glances down at Alistair’s bedroll that they’re both sitting on and wonders, _why not?_ Their hands are still interlaced.

Amell sits in the silence, trying to remember the last time she slept with someone. Those kinds of instances were relatively common in her Circle where personal boundaries were so tenuous and thin. Inhibition and fear kept them tightly laced, and a kiss, a touch, a quick and heartless fuck made the nooses around their necks little easier to wear. As for her time among the Wardens, dalliances here and there meant a bit of relief and a moment to forget the stresses of regular near-death encounters.

She leans in a touch closer until she has her chin propped up on Alistair’s shoulder. Alistair shifts to make her more comfortable before he reaches over and starts reading through the letter again. Amell idly reads the looping cursive of Queen Anora’s handwriting, only to find that it’s exactly what he told her earlier. Limited resources, a good deal of friendly chiding, and underneath it all, an undertone of worry. She scans it quickly before she muses on whether or not to take the first action.

Amell nestles in just a little closer, and Alistair easily makes more room for her. She inhales softly and smells the scent of Ferelden on him. Leather, farmer’s soap, the barest touch of musk, and the cool scent of rain combined with a touch of earthy mud. It’s different than Orlais where even among the Wardens, perfumes are a common toiletry.

“Getting cold?” Alistair asks. Amell looks up to find him looking at her. His gaze flickers over all of her from her loose, messy hair to the worn-down and almost ragged blues of her uniform. He narrows his eyes at one particularly threadbare spot and thumbs it thoughtfully. The touch sends sparks running across Amell’s skin, both metaphorical and magical.

“Maybe,” Amell murmurs. She uses his shoulders to prop herself up and whispers, “As cliché as this sounds, I could think of a few ways to warm up.”

Alistair drags in a ragged breath, and he settles his hands around her waist as he repositions himself underneath her. “Really now?” he says. His voice is husky, and Amell shivers under his touch. There’s a hungry kind of look on his face that she’s never seen before, but there’s also some degree of reverence to it. He skates his hands down from her waist, over her hips, and on her thighs.

Then, he kisses her. Slowly, carefully, lovingly. Alistair kisses in a way that is so endearingly tender, and it is foreign to her. She’s used to quickness, speed and fire and passion behind closed doors or sometimes up against them. This thing she feels with Alistair feels newly-fledged, a thing with wings that flutters and beats against the walls of her heart.

They move with equal reciprocity and learn the way each other moves. Amell has always been a scholar at heart, and so, she commits this new knowledge to memory. All thoughts of supplies, a new home, Vigil’s Keep and the matter of the Inquisition — all of those get set aside for just a moment.

And it is glorious.

Well, not glorious in the way that it feels like the Maker is personally greeting her. Amell finds that this is a gentler, more subtle thing that soothes her frazzled nerves. They whisper to each other if they even speak at all — words like “here?” or “yes” — and it is a soft thing. This is more precious than anything else: the sweet, blissful absence of worry only for a moment.

In the aftermath of it though, the thoughts once again return. They lie together, limbs tangled with each other, on Alistair’s bedroll. Alistair’s hand reaches out for the now-crumpled letter, and he glances over it once more. He searches through it, almost as if he was searching for something new, something different than what he already knew.

Amell reaches over to lay her hand over Alistair’s hand with the letter. She presses her lips in a thin line as she searches for answers. “I’m sure we could find some other jobs for them,” she finally says, lips pressed against Alistair’s skin. “They all had lives before they were Wardens. Farmers, blacksmiths, farriers, builders. We can figure out who has skills applicable for other jobs and employ them there.” She considers her next idea with a good deal of trepidation before she finally takes the plunge and says, “And… I know this isn’t good to say, but Orzammar — or rather, the Legion of the Dead — is always an option.”

Alistair’s eyes fly open and he firmly says, “No, we’re not sending them down to the Deep Roads.”

Amell reaches out a hand to tilt Alistair’s face back to her. She makes sure that she has his full attention before she admits, “I’ve been running physicals and check-ups on the Wardens’ health and the extent of the Taint. Some of Erimond’s experiments accelerated the progression of the Taint. I know our Calling was false, but some of us are dangerously close to the true Calling. Some Wardens were already old and beyond their time, and most of the ones we lost in the battle were the younger, fresh-faced ones.”

“We can’t do that to them,” Alistair says aghast. “I can’t take them back to Ferelden and then immediately ship them back to the Deep Roads, never to be seen under the light of the sun again.”

Oh, Amell hates playing devil’s advocate, but she knows that the truth is hard to choke down. She hates Corypheus, Erimond, Trevelyan, anyone that she can dare to blame for this, but the truth of the matter is that they are all dying. Even Amell has lived a long decade since the Blight, and in her bones, she knows that they don’t have much time anymore. “This is the closest that we will ever be to Orzammar,” she presses. “Once we hit the border, it will be so much harder to travel back which takes even more gold from our pockets.”

“I’m beginning to think that someone tore a hole into my metaphysical pockets,” Alistair grumbles.

Amell snorts, “Someone did, and her name is Lady Inquisitor Adaline of House Trevelyan.”

Alistair leans in to press a kiss to Amell’s forehead and murmurs, “We’ll figure it out.”

“But what if we can’t?” Amell whispers back. “What if this is the end? No matter how much elfroot or magic I pour into their wounds and their bodies, I cannot stop the Taint from taking what it wants. How can I possibly hope to cure something like that? It’s impossible.”

Alistair’s grip suddenly tightens on Amell’s hand, and she leans away to peer at his face. “Are you alright?” she asks.

Alistair looks lost as he replies slowly, “Not impossible, no… Trevelyan said that she met a mage in Redcliffe. The leader of the mage rebellion who was stuck in some sort of paradox.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Trevelyan willingly met a mage?” Amell asks. Her disbelief makes her words sharper than she intends them to, but anything involving Trevelyan manages to stoke even a small particle of her ire.

“It was before they allied with the templars,” Alistair says. “An old friend, Leliana, finally made her go and at least have a talk with the mage. Her name was Fiona, and she used to be a Grey Warden.”

“Used to?” Amell repeats.

Alistair nods. “Used to.”

“Why, that’s impossible!” Amell exclaims. “How did she remove the Taint from herself? What happened to her?”

“I don’t really know the details very well,” Alistair confesses. “Either Trevelyan didn’t bother to learn anything more or she’s not telling me enough. Alternatively, Fiona might not have told her the full story behind it.”

“The latter sounds more believable,” Amell says.

“The part where Trevelyan refuses to tell me more or that Fiona didn’t tell Trevelyan the full story?”

“Both.”

Amell leans in closer to Alistair and considers their options. The prospects of a cure to the Taint is so ridiculously enticing, but half of her has to wonder if it’s a pipe dream. She can’t believe that a Warden cured herself. “Do you know where she is now?” she asks.

Alistair’s eyes darken. “Likely with the Venatori,” he answers. “The last I heard about them, the rebel mages essentially landed in a situation where they are slaves to the Venatori’s will. Corypheus has them now, and I don’t know how we’ll manage to find her. Maybe she’s already dead.”

Amell refuses to let go of the small spark of hope she finds in her heart though. It surprises her really. She thought all possible chance of hope died at Adamant with the rest of the Order, but in the small space between Alistair and her, she can feel it. A flicker-beat in the dark.

They prop themselves up into a sitting position, but Amell moves to straddle Alistair’s lap. “Are you already good for another round?” he jokes.

Amell keeps the hope alive on her face, but she shakes her head. Alistair cocks his head to the side with confusion, but Amell presses her forehead to Alistair’s. “I think we can still search for the Cure though,” she says. “We could find Fiona, find out what was so different about her, and use that to save the rest of the Wardens. Eliminate the Calling, silence Corypheus’s voice in our minds, keep the others from joining the bones of the dead in the Deep Roads.”

Alistair hesitates. She can feel the way his shoulders tense. Hard not to when her skin is pressed close to his. But then, he relaxes under Amell’s touch. “You’re right,” he says. His voice grows stronger as he tells her, “I’ve had enough of other people sacrificing themselves for me, for you, for us. No more of that. We can buy ourselves our own time.”

Amell nods, and Alistair pulls her into a crushing embrace. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, and she can feel him shaking with the same hope that sends thrills down her spine. She pulls back just enough to kiss him _hard_ , and she hopes with a kind of viciousness borne out of a decade of blood.

They’ll make it through this. They’ll survive this. The Inquisitor may break the world apart and cause wounds unlike anyone else in her Exalted March, but Amell is familiar with wounds. Because Lina Amell knows that a healer has the bloodiest hands. Because she know that there is no other way to know how deep a wound runs without finding it, probing it, and accepting it. After all, the healing process cannot begin without it. Despite the blood on her hands, the blood that she’s lost, and the blood that she knows the world has yet to lose, she thinks that it’s possible.

It’s possible to survive. It’s possible to _hope._

**Author's Note:**

> i've always been interested in the orlesian warden, and i always enjoy stories where the other warden origins survive. so, i kinda blended them all together into one along with another idea inspired by a bit of dialogue from dai. i believe it's from solas? but also, i always love it when storylines just skirt against each other, almost like parallel lines where they always follow the same paths but never intersect.
> 
> i was terribly tempted to write a sadder and much more tragic ending for this, but in the end, i couldn't resist a more hopeful ending. i think the world-state of this setting is bad enough to the point where alistair and amell deserve a little more than just tragedy. that's why i reversed the order of the warden motto when i was naming the chapters. that way, it emphasizes that this story starts with sacrifice and ends with vigilance. 
> 
> thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoyed it!


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